Until this week, I had been using the free services of 150m.com (AKA
0catch.com of Orem UT) to host a few miscellaneous personal web pages. For
my purpose it seemed like an OK trade-off. A couple of ads, including
Google, would appear at the top of the page in return for free website
hosting.

After 5 months of usage, I was pretty surprised to find that the site had
begun sending out trojan type viruses. I use Trend Micro's PC-Cillin which
intercepted several attempts by the site to infect my computer with
TROJ_DOWNLOADR.B and INF_DLOADER.A.
I sent an email about this abuse to the site. Here is the reply I received:


Date: Wed, 19 Jan 05 12:50:24 -0700
Subject: Tech support free account

On the free accounts, there is a program/trojan that advertises ads and
such. IT IS NOT HARMFUL AT ALL. You can upgrade to a bronze account to be
free of the program.

Thanks,
Technical Support
Brandon Swenson

------------------------------------------------------------
So now we have it. Trojans from which AV software is designed to protect us
are really harmless, that is if you believe the scoundrels who deliberately
spread them. Needless to say, I yanked my pages from their site. I was
rather surprised that they actually admitted to engaging in this kind of
abuse. According to the website of 150m.com they provide free hosting for
120,000 sites.

"Lydia" <lydi_fuera@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:10v0a83e4elapf3@corp.supernews.com...
Adware downloader programs installed by add supported software or
services may be detected by AV programs - this does not mean they are
malicious. Did the site have a EULA? Did you read it or just click the
accept button (most peeps just click)? It may have mentioned that by
accepting, you agree to have this program (or others) installed on your
machine. A trojan (?) that downloads adware may be indistinguishable
from one that downloads malware - and so it is a good thing to have AV
detect them. This illustrates how "trojan" is in the eye of the
beholder.

Lydia wrote:

Don't let the fact that their point of view may be legit (though not one I
personally subscribe to) get in the way of a good rant.

Some antivirus programs used to "protect" you against "joke" programs. These
were harmless prank files... All that glitters is not gold and all that
antivirus programs scream about like lunatics is not the end of the world.

--
--
Rob Moir
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html
Kazaa - Software update services for your Viruses and Spyware.

"Roger Wilco" <yesman@yourservice.invalid> wrote in message
news:10v0gc98mlb3901@corp.supernews.com...
There was no EULA. There was no "accept" button. There was no agreed upon
software download. It was a trojan sent out unknowingly to any visitor to
the web pages hosted by this site

"Lydia" <lydi_fuera@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:10v2m62eiqvsvcb@corp.supernews.com...

If that's the case, I'd be pissed off too.