We’ve been hearing that the screensaver site known as “webshots.com” can
jeopardize a persons DOS on their cpu. Is there any truth to this to any degree.
If so what’s the danger and why/how does it exist? Please email at RSchwend@BoiseState.edu and let me know what you’ve found out so that we can remedy this situation in some way.
What do you mean by “DOS on thier CPU”? That doesn’t make sense.
Just to get this out of the way, a CPU does not have a Disk Operating System. There is no conceivable way I could think of where even a malicious screensaver could ruin your CPU. (maybe make it crunch so many floating points in an attempt to overheat it?)
I guess I’m using terminology that might be a bit archaic. Sorry about that. DOS refers to the Disc Operating System and CPU refers to Central Processing Unit. Or at least that’s what I was taught many years ago. Obviously it’s changed somewhat or something. But anyway…the computer freezes up and the mouse won’t operate. This doesn’t happen all the time but often enough that it’s a pain in the rear. And the people in my office have heard that it’s because we have “webshots.com” on our computers as a screensaver. They also heard along with this that there’s some feud between Webshots and the the people behind Windows. Something about a code of numbers or whatever that one of them won’t supply to the other so this “thing” we’ve been experiencing is the result. I personally took webshots off my computer and don’t have the problem anymore. I did it on my home computer and eliminated the problem again. Is this coincidence or is there something to this rumor we’ve all heard. If so I’d like to know so I can take it to our network person and solve this freezing of things for everyone. And it’ll make me look good too!!! Which is what everything is all aobut anyway…right?
Thanks ahead of time for anything you can contribute to this. I appreciate it lots.
Well I guess it depends on how many megahertz of memory you have. Webshots relies on a front-side bus allocation system, so you need DOS version 6.0 or higher to remedy the jeopardization situation.
If you can shell to the webshots command prompt, try this workaround:
C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN
But seriously, do you know which version of Windows you are running? I’ve never had any problems with webshots on WinXP or Win2000.
Webshots used to surreptitiously install a piece of spyware called “NewDotNet” on the client computer, and a previous version of AdAware would damage the Windows Networking Winsock component when it tried to remove it. This would cause the internet connection to fail, and the client would be unable to connect to the ISP. Adaware corrected the problem, and subsequent versions removed NewDotNet without damaging Winsock. I haven’t heard about any other problems such as the system freeze you mentioned.
Webshots now denies that they install any adware or spyware, but they may be depending of a very narrow definition of those terms that technically excludes NewDotNet. Whether they do at this time is unknown, but they used to, and it wouldn’t surprise me if NewDotNet is still included.
NewDotNet can be uninstalled by following the instructions on the newdotnet.com website. They are apparently a bunch of litigious bastards, and have posted a prohibition against linking directly to the removal instructions page.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/feb-2003/22.php#new.net