Computer Immediately Hacked and Destroyed after Posting Complaint to Blizzard Forums

Well everyone, thanks for your help and input. I have been able to save my computer by doing a system restore. I do recommend that everyone save their important files to an external hard drive of some kind, that is what I do. It has already gone through three computers and maintains all of my important files and media. Even if this laptop had been destroyed, it would have been okay.

Now all that is left for Blizzard to save Diablo... which I hope it does. At the moment, its economy is in complete collapse.

Gold farmers ruin the economy in online games and imo should be banned from the games. It sounds like you already had the virus in your system and just didn't know it.

Couple of things.

1) Download 'Spywareblaster' from Javacool software (here). It's free, it doesn't run while the PC is up and running (so no CPU cycles), and it prevents spyware from installing in the first place. It's awesome. Been using it for years.

2) Download 'Security Task Manager' or SysInternals' Process Explorer (here). This will allow you to terminate any unwanted processes. Normally if you have malware or a virus screwing things up, the filenames are weird. Things like ZgheaYTw.exe and rubbish like that. Or, they hide themselves by looking legitimate, when they're not (e.g one program is called "scvhost.exe", masquerading as Windows' own "svchost.exe". Slight difference in name, huge difference in function. One is Windows' Service Host, the other the malware.

Those two programs have helped me more than I can count over the years, and are essential items to have in your toolbox. Especially if, like me, you utterly refuse to run antivirus software

Aww hell, never got hacked. Did get a temp ban once on the forums for inserting a Pffffft in a post. It was an appropriate expression of my feelings and I'd only applied in type the exact noise I'd made in RL. So yeah, being offed for a virtual noise was hilarious.

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
I think there is a massive sleeper virus that no one has detected. I will for good measure reformat and throw in a hard drive that has never seen the internet. I will keep that PC at home unconnected. MY work PC I will reformat, write zeros to the drive and try again.

Sleeper virus! Wonder what it does when it wakes up?

It's possible your pc hardware has been infected by 'firmware rootkits', in which case re-formatting your drive is not going to help much.

Before Home Land Security was even a title for an officiall government agency, before terrorism was much of a loaded word, I was active in writing and discussing UFOs on the internet. These were in the days of the early Carnivore program from the NSA, etc. On the day of 9/11 I was using a relatively new firewall, free program, Zone Alarm. I would get three or four hits a week from outside computers trying to access my system. On the day of 9/11 in the evening, I couldn't carry on writing emails because of the near constant hits that sudden flooded my machine. I counted over sixty before I quit for the evening. The next several days multiplied that number many times over. Who was attacking my puny, no-consequence system and why at that particular time?

The only sensible explanation was because of being pro-UFO, I therefore had strong feelings about government censorship over the true nature of UFOs and voiced those feelings on the internet. In effect, that put me in the catagory of being anti-government, a reason to be watched as a mild-mannered surversive, a suspect.

And if I was a viable suspect in those early days, why not today us being even better tracked and our machines sabotaged by the whims of a bored watcher or the triggering of a radomly generated internal problem?

After all, doesn't many of us on ATS fall under one of HLS's own classifications as "a person of interest"?

Flame need not had been invented just for industrial use, you know.

I agree with the person who said it sounds like you had a virus on there prior. Although it seems that if you think someone is hacking your computer, why not unplug everything, internet cables, power, ect.. Then hook up without the internet and run some major clean up/anti virus tools. I have four boys and they play a lot of games online, mostly through their xbox or ps3. We have two computers downstairs and I rarely use them. Went down there to use it last night and there was all sorts of crap on the computers. It's a good thing hubby owns his own IT company and I have learned some things over the years. I think I may just do a full reload of windows, it'll be easier than cleaning up the mess of all those stupid games.

*Before someone goes calling me paranoia, I'm not *

I've been noticing something too lately, especially on youtube. Whenever I'm in one of those conspiracy-video-tunnels (or whatever you want to call it), you know, where every related video etc. is about conspiracy related themes? My computers slowly start clogging up. This never happens when I'm watching music videos or whatever, only when it's conspiracy related...

I'm no expert and I'm not convinced there's something to it either, but wouldn't it be possible for the worlds biggest internet-company to make it so that videos that have been "tagged" by them work differently than regular videos? For example, you hit up a "Olympics 2012 false flag illuminati warning!!!" video, upon visiting that particular page, in the background more information or a specific file is loading, causing your computer to have difficulties with it?

I'll probably get ridiculed by the geeks who figure they know everything that goes on on a website, but when they say the military is 40 years ahead of us technology-wise, wouldn't that also apply to the internet? They invented it, I'm sure they're capable of doing more than your regular tech-savvy geek?

Again, I'm not paranoia, I'm not saying the government is in my computer preventing me to read up on conspiracy stuff, but would such a thing be possible? Like a trap, you lure people in, in the background something happens, bam, you're done?

I dont understand how people manage to get viruses in this day and age.

Its really simple. Install an Antivirus program like AVG Free, install Peerblocker and use CCleaner to clean out the junk on your drives once a week.

Combine this with not going to porn websites, not downloading pirated files you are not 100% sure of and not clicking email links you don't recognise and you have a sure-fire winner.

Take this from someone who works in IT and has been virus-free for several years now.

......and NO ATS or Blizzard did NOT put a virus on your PC.

reply to post by darkbake


As someone who plays Diablo 3 and is about as disappointed as you are, I can see exactly the same patterns and trends of corruption you are.

First I would like to state some of my personal thoughts on EXACTLY what Acti-Blizz is doing, and while it is genius it will fail and ultimately ruin the franchise.

First off I would like to point out that the RMAH (real money auction house) is 100% anonymous...you don't know who you are buying or selling to. In a in game virtual currency sense this is no big deal, ok everyone is anon so what? HOWEVER in a REAL MONEY $$$ sense this is a HUGE deal.

Personally I think blizzard is creating the best end-game items (because they can its "their game") posting them on the RMAH and even the Gold auction house, these items are the ones people find "necessary" to progress into later acts on inferno.

This is allowing blizz to corner the market. While simultaneously control the game in a way that makes it almost impossible to enjoy or play without utilizing the auction house or caving in a buying items/gold with real $$$$

If you look in the auction house at the amount of end-game items being posted and compare it to the amount of dwindling players then cross reference that with the amount of players who are even far enough into the game to GET that kind of gear you will see where I am coming from in my suspicions.

Another thing people weren't realizing was that upon release the gear needed to complete Act II inferno was found in Act III...to complete act III you needed act IV...and to complete act IV...you need to have bought those epic items I was talking about that I accuse blizz of creating anonymously.

almost from the get go of launch you could find some absurdly powerful ilvl63 items that should have been impossible for people to get because they didn't have the gear to get to the places where the gear dropped....let alone actually kill anything. They HAD to of saved gold and bought items off the AH to do so....

Ask ANY inferno farming playing where they got their gear and 90% of it will be from the AH or RMAH....10% being items they actually found from playing the game...this makes me believe 90% of the items that are of end-game are created out of thin air by blizz (because they can) anonymously while simultaneously they release a game that is impossible to progress through without buying those items they created out of thin air.

Illegal? not necessarily...Unethical? Absolutely...would they lose fans/customers if this was common knowledge? YES and they are continuing to do so because the most of the community have caught on to blizzards RMAH pillage your pocket game...

this game wasn't designed to be FUN, it was designed to be so incredibly frustrating your only option to alleviate that frustration is to throw money at the problem...or quit

youtube will stick the less watched stuff onto slower and slower media to save cost so if you're the 1st person to watch a video in a day you'll have to wait longer than people watching music video's which are accessed more often

Big corporations are going to drive the gaming industry into the ground. A game has to sell so many millions of copies... all in the first month to be successful. Send out a game with day 1 DLC, and include on-disk DLC(oxymoron) to squeeze out a few bucks with content that could be sold with the original game. AAA titles like Call of Duty and Sequel to the Sequel 4 are the only games worth investing in because they have the best track record of selling. Lower tier IPs disappear because they aren't worth investing in because the corporations can't make the most money off of them.
I have hope for the emergence of free to play games since they have been shown to be a viable model, but the margin for exploitation is huge.
All of the bad business practices of EA and Activision have led to a booming "indie" game market, so not all hope is lost, but money corrupts and innovation takes a backseat to sales.

I've always loved Blizzard, but Activision needs to keep their money-grubbing hands off and let things happen. I knew it was only a matter of time until exploitations of the real-money AH came to light because they need MORE MONEY!!!!

For you guys talking about programs and desktop icons disappearing, there was malware going around that actually set all of your files to a 'hidden' state. I usually have my computer 'show hidden files' but it changed that setting to not show them as well. Once I removed the actual malware, I had to find another program to actually unhide the files and folders. I saw this on one of my personal computers and on a couple of friend's.

reply to post by yizzel


Nah I don't have any problems.

I run anti root kits and a plethora of antivirus software at least once a month. I clean my system weekly and with a plethora of programs as well. I am covered.

I just get paranoid about my work computer since I am not the only one that uses it. My home computer I have disconnected from the internet and only connect when absolutely necessary. I do all my online activity at work.

I am convinced though that the government needs a kill switch for the internet. They have been really anal with the internet and really fear it.

If I was in charge of internet censorship for a government as powerful as the USA, I would implement a benign virus that could be used to kill internet activity for a brief time if necessary.

You could only use it once, but it could save you if somehow an integral part of your intelligence was compromised and in the process of being disseminated.

You could not contact the many service providers and websites worldwide and ask them to shut down their servers in time. You could make people install a virus by anything from social media to OS updates. Then if need be you execute the command and make everybody go dark for at least a few hours.

That is enough time to prepare a response.

maybe I am paranoid. I guess I am. I will be forever.

What about linux users? Theyd still have the internet....

Originally posted by scorpiosin
For you guys talking about programs and desktop icons disappearing, there was malware going around that actually set all of your files to a 'hidden' state. I usually have my computer 'show hidden files' but it changed that setting to not show them as well. Once I removed the actual malware, I had to find another program to actually unhide the files and folders. I saw this on one of my personal computers and on a couple of friend's.

Yeah, this is exactly what happened. I usually have it set to show hidden files and folders as well, but this malware changed that. After my system restore, it is kind of funny, half of my icons and files are still set to hidden even though I can see them... how annoying...

reply to post by MeesterB


Yeah, I agree about Activision. Also, look at what happens in this day and age when corporations think the bottom line is money - the movie industry and the music industry are jokes because they can't adjust to the times. In order to be successful nowadays, companies need to think more about serving their customers' interests and making quality products than screwing their customers over as much as they can to make money.

Originally posted by benrl
Ive been watching the Auction house thing, people are even complaining to the FBI about loss funds from auctions...

As for the rest, TRUST me, blizzard does not have the employees to even begin doing what you suggest.
I had a friend who worked there in Irvine, those people or overworked and stretched thin, no time to rage hack one dude on a blizz forum.

on a side note, god damn those blizz people know how to make a time sink, how bout that for a conspiracy, they have triggered my OCD just right with this game I CANT STOP PLAYING HELP!!! lol

edit on 3-7-2012 by benrl because: (no reason given)

I wonder if you have been programmed by the flicker rate subliminally? I don't know if it is possible to do this to the subconscious as you played? I am just throwing it out there..

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
reply to post by yizzel

 

Nah I don't have any problems.

I run anti root kits and a plethora of antivirus software at least once a month. I clean my system weekly and with a plethora of programs as well. I am covered.

I just get paranoid about my work computer since I am not the only one that uses it. My home computer I have disconnected from the internet and only connect when absolutely necessary. I do all my online activity at work.

I am convinced though that the government needs a kill switch for the internet. They have been really anal with the internet and really fear it.

If I was in charge of internet censorship for a government as powerful as the USA, I would implement a benign virus that could be used to kill internet activity for a brief time if necessary.

You could only use it once, but it could save you if somehow an integral part of your intelligence was compromised and in the process of being disseminated.

You could not contact the many service providers and websites worldwide and ask them to shut down their servers in time. You could make people install a virus by anything from social media to OS updates. Then if need be you execute the command and make everybody go dark for at least a few hours.

That is enough time to prepare a response.

maybe I am paranoid. I guess I am. I will be forever.

edit on 3-7-2012 by BIHOTZ because: (no reason given)

I don't think an Internet kill switch is possible because we are building all of the smart technologies into our appliances and electric meters. If the Internet goes down so will the mesh network holding together some of the electrical grid. The more dependent and intertwined modern life and the interconnectivity of the internet combine the harder it will be to have an Internet kill switch.

reply to post by darkbake


The changes made to WoW:Cata if compared to others made it very evident already that the focus of Blizzard ain't customer satisfaction anymore.

It's all about money. Granted, Blizzard is a commercial company but it has always been the pearl of the gaming industry if it comes down to game quality and content.

Not anymore....