NationStates Jolt Archive

Hello, I was experiencing an odd situation last night, when trying to log into the forums. I would either be redirected to some wholly-unrelated, spammy page - or my browser would hang and hang 'til I'd get an alert message saying the "document contains no data". I noticed that the featured forum threads down the left-hand side of the page seemed to be updating from one attempt to another, so I deduced that my problem could be at my end - though how or why I should be redirected away from the forums is a mystery to me, one that I have no idea how to correct.

I tried using both Firefox and IE, to no avail. I've successfully logged in to the forums today (from the office), so now I'm wondering if this was either a problem at my end - at home - or if anyone else has reported a similar situation. I didn't see any other NSers posting a similar problem, though so now I'm a little worried.

Can anybody shed some light as to what's happening - and more importantly, how to contend with it?

Many thanks,

Dobbs.

Sounds to me like you've gotten a bit of malware or virus from a toolbar or download. They steal your request and push you towards whatever site they're advertising. Since those sites also get shut down frequently, you end up at a dead page.

Check with the usual lot of malware / anti-virus sites. I used to use Spybot and AdAware, but perhaps those have been superceded. I'm sure helpful readers can point you to some of the better current sites.

Don't ask me how, but it seems to have sorted itself. Thanks for the advice nonetheless, Frisbeeteria - it's been a real head-scratcher for me.

I - urghh, how do I start? I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was so unbelievably wrong when I wrote that it seemed to have sorted itself... lemme tell ya kids, if you find your browser being redirected to something called "jupk.com" run - don't walk - to someone who you can readily rely upon in times of computer troubles.

The series of hoops I had to jump through in order to get back here to the Nationstates Forums was just incredible. Well, at least I know my system is clean - it's been so thoroughly analyzed, deep-scanned, immunized, and otherwise roto-rooted you could practically catch a hint of that new-car smell about it.

Funny thing was, you know - it never affected anything but the NS Forums for me. I don't have a particularly overly trumped-up sense of forum paranoia (really now) - but it strikes me as odd that this malware trouble I'd had should have been so very site-specific. My gut tells me I maybe might have clicked on a bad link in one of the forum threads last week, but of course I can't back that up - part of the malware removal ritual my favoured computer witch-doctor and I had to observe involved flushing caches and totally removing anything like cookies or histories and ended with us rooting around the system registry.

So forgive me if I'm running off a bit at the mouth, but I'm happier'n Hell to be back (and I don't mind admitting I paid someone I know $50 to help get me back to NS. You people mean that much to me - !). But more importantly, if you suddenly find yourselves getting sent to spammy websites instead of Nationstates, don't assume it'll fix itself. Get help, and get it quick!




(Sorry I can't give you all the technical ins-and-outs I went through getting back, but I'm not technically-minded and there was just too much to do to remember everything anyway)

Sounds to me like you've gotten a bit of malware or virus from a toolbar or download. They steal your request and push you towards whatever site they're advertising. Since those sites also get shut down frequently, you end up at a dead page.

Check with the usual lot of malware / anti-virus sites. I used to use Spybot and AdAware, but perhaps those have been superceded. I'm sure helpful readers can point you to some of the better current sites.

You were so right. Absolutely right.

You were so right. Absolutely right.

Of course I was. I HAVE had a bit of experience with these things, y'know.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/frisbeeteria/temp/reboot.jpg

Ah, kids these days and their "Melty Boxxy Mods"...

Why, I remember when I left my pizzabox on during a lightning storm just so the surge could blow the top off. Those were good times.