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I think I have spyware... ON MY MAC!!!!

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Stinkythe1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 30, 2005
208
0
Ok, I reset safari and it still doesn't fix it. I also tried to go to sdlkfjoe.net or anything to that effect in firefox, and it redirects it to that net.net stuff also.
 
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Eric5h5

macrumors 68020
Dec 9, 2004
2,489
591
Stinkythe1 said:
What is going on?
Click to expand...

You're not running Windows. You don't have spyware. ;)

Check this out. The fix described is for Windows, but it's similar on Macs...open preferences, click on the Network pref pane, put the right DNS number in the obvious place.

--Eric
 
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Stinkythe1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 30, 2005
208
0
Quartz Extreme said:
Check your hosts file:

sudo
/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit
/etc/hosts
Click to expand...

Explain this.


Also, my DNS information is correct.
 
belvdr

belvdr

macrumors 603
Aug 15, 2005
5,945
1,372
I doubt its your hosts file, as all entries ending in .net go to http://www.net.net. I'm not sure you can put a wildcard entry into /etc/hosts.

Are you running through a proxy server of some sort? If Firefox acts the same as Safari, it has to be a more global problem.
 
powerbook911

powerbook911

macrumors 601
Mar 15, 2005
4,001
381
I had this happen to me a couple months ago. I restarted the computer, and it worked again. It was doing it to me in Firefox too. Maybe it was my ISP though, I'm not sure.
 
rainman::|:|

rainman::|:|

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2002
5,438
2
iowa
Sounds like some bad DNS entries are filtering down to your ISP, and they have to others as well. Probably not spyware for obvious reasons. And spyware doesn't just go away for some people... admittedly this isn't a great answer but it's the best i can think of.
 
FFTT

FFTT

macrumors 68030
Apr 17, 2004
2,952
1
A Stoned Throw From Ground Zero
I seriously doubt you have any spyware on your machine.

Even so,
I'm wondering if you may have downloaded any questionable
files or programs from a P2P network?

More than likely, I have to agree that this is an issue
with your ISP.
 
MacNoobie

MacNoobie

macrumors 6502a
Mar 15, 2005
545
0
Colorado
I don’t think its spyware at all, for some reason a company.. don’t know who or where has registered or somehow controls domains that are either spelled incorrectly or not valid and when you type in a domain name that’s misspelled (commonly) it seems to redirect to "a web site". I don’t know who controls it or why but I've noticed it with my mac and windows machines, like for example I try http://www.dprevew.com (correct one has an I in vew) and gives me http://newnet.qsrch.com/dpark?s=dprevew.com&prt=nn01 , so no its not spyware that I can tell its just some company or entity controlling redirects to an invalid name instead of showing you a domain not found message.

The url its redirected to is Quick! Search Technology from New.net. © 2003 - 2005 New.net, Inc. All rights reserved. That’s the "company" I commonly see if I misspell a domain name.

I doubt that DNS settings from your ISP are even the problem, I think it has more to do with a lot of companies now controlling domain name registrations and other aspects of the internet, use that to get traffic to their site. If you think about it then it makes sense from a company aspect to redirect and increase traffic to a site you (the company) own and what better way to do it then to tap into misspelling a domain name, you know how many people a day must mistype a url (even one letter) and get this quick search crap, especially people that don’t understand the internet and just see a search engine and end up using that one (which probably ends up installing spyware somewhere down the line).
 
snkTab

snkTab

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2004
580
1
Cincinnati, OH
ISP's get hit with DNS attacks as well. It took a few weeks before 50% of all my websites that I visited to stop being redirected to a site where I can buy offshore drugs.

Basically, when you send a request for webpage A, it goes to your ISP and your ISP's records are scambled so a lot of all its cached ip <-> domain names go to these spam sites.
 
SummerBreeze

SummerBreeze

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2005
593
0
Chicago, IL
I don’t think its spyware at all, for some reason a company.. don’t know who or where has registered or somehow controls domains that are either spelled incorrectly or not valid and when you type in a domain name that’s misspelled (commonly) it seems to redirect to "a web site".
Click to expand...

The thing is, the company has to BUY all these domains in order to get them to redirect to a different website. This definitely sounds like a bit of spyware that my roommate had on her computer last year. Everytime she spelled something wrong, a spyware program that had installed itself in internet explorer redirected the browser to a online store.

Did you install any new programs lately? Sometimes programmers can't afford to distrubute their programs, so they let these spyware companies install spyware "helpers" along with the program. Maybe something like that happened?

If not, you should contact your ISP.
 
M

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,674
1,261
The Cool Part of CA, USA
Hmm... the fact that it's only on nonexistant .net domains certainly points to your ISP, not your Mac (for example the big Verisign hulabaloo of a couple years back), but if it's the same from another computer using the same internet connection, then that is less likely.

To confirm, it does *not* do this on another computer when it's connected using the same ISP?

And, since it's not Safari only, it'd have to be lower-level than a simple browser hijack.

The first thing to try would be, as suggested, to manually set your DNS to an available DNS server somewhere (I'm sure you can Google up a pile) and see if that changes anything. If not it doesn't guarantee it's not the ISP but seems a lot less likely, so the hosts file is next up (also as mentioned). The third possibility would indeed be some sort of adware, though it'd be something of a first.
 
E

Err

macrumors member
Aug 19, 2005
80
0
i second the post above me.

does this "redirect" happen to other computers on your network when visting the same .net address? if so its your ISP. setting your computer up to use a diff DNS is another good idea, if you dont have another computer on your network to try.
 
S

Stinkythe1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 30, 2005
208
0
Makosuke said:
To confirm, it does *not* do this on another computer when it's connected using the same ISP?
Click to expand...

Correct.


DNS for comcast is set correctly, also.
 
mkrishnan

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
When you go to System Preferences -> Networking -> (click on the connection you're using) -> TCP/IP, are you using DHCP, and what is written in the DNS servers and Search domains boxes?

Usually you don't really have to set up DNS anymore... especially not on a computer downstream of a router. The first device in the line (usually the router) should get all of that via DHCP, and then should pass it on to everything else via DHCP. I have Cox cable and not Comcast, but I don't have any DNSes set up explicitly, either on my router or on my iBook....
 
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