Unknown download activity in background - how to determine what it is?

Unknown download activity in background - how to determine what it is?
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Unknown download activity in background - how to determine what it is? Doc 07-28-2007
Posted by John John on July 28, 2007, 9:41 am
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Surely Zone Alarm should tell you that, doesn't it? Reset all your ZA
rules to allow nothing and start reapplying the rules as asked when
applications want to establish connections.

John

Doc wrote:

> I'm using WinXP Media Center, the last few days I've noticed that
> there's some kind of d/l actitivity showing even when I'm doing
> nothing online even with the Windows firewall up as well as
> ZoneAlarm. I'm on 56k dialup. How do I determine what this is? I
> don't have Windows update on automatic. I ran AdAware with the latest
> definitions but it's still doing it.
>
> Thanks.
>

Posted by BoaterDave on July 28, 2007, 9:55 am
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Hi Doc

I've been led to believe that, just like one should only ever have a single
active antivirus programme, one should only have a single software firewall
operative. In other words, disable MS Windows firewall if you are using Zone
Alarm.

HTH

David

______________________________________________________________________________________________
> I'm using WinXP Media Center, the last few days I've noticed that
> there's some kind of d/l actitivity showing even when I'm doing
> nothing online even with the Windows firewall up as well as
> ZoneAlarm. I'm on 56k dialup. How do I determine what this is? I
> don't have Windows update on automatic. I ran AdAware with the latest
> definitions but it's still doing it.
>
> Thanks.
>



Posted by JW on July 28, 2007, 10:48 am
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Could it be Media Center updating your EPG?
If you go to task manager you should be able to see what programs are
consuming CPU power when the downloading occurs.
> Hi Doc
>
> I've been led to believe that, just like one should only ever have a
> single active antivirus programme, one should only have a single software
> firewall operative. In other words, disable MS Windows firewall if you are
> using Zone Alarm.
>
> HTH
>
> David
>
>
______________________________________________________________________________________________
>> I'm using WinXP Media Center, the last few days I've noticed that
>> there's some kind of d/l actitivity showing even when I'm doing
>> nothing online even with the Windows firewall up as well as
>> ZoneAlarm. I'm on 56k dialup. How do I determine what this is? I
>> don't have Windows update on automatic. I ran AdAware with the latest
>> definitions but it's still doing it.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>
>


Posted by Kayman on July 28, 2007, 7:05 pm
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> Hi Doc
>
> I've been led to believe that, just like one should only ever have a
> single active antivirus programme,
One should only ever have a single *real- time* AV program, if you wish you
can have several *on-demand* AV apps.
> one should only have a single software firewall operative. In other
> words, disable MS Windows firewall if you are using Zone Alarm.
>
Uninstalling ZA would be an even better solution. It's Phoney-Baloney ware;
It gives you a false sense of security.
Go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/05/SecurityMyths/default.aspx
and scroll down to:
Myth: Host-Based Firewalls Must Filter Outbound Traffic to be Safe.

Then read this:
("...the typical form of outbound protection in client firewalls is just
security theater.)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/06/VistaFirewall/default.aspx

And this:
http://www.samspade.org/d/firewalls.html

Read and impelement this:
http://www.ntsvcfg.de/ntsvcfg_eng.html
http://www.dingens.org/index.html.en

And consider implemening Hardening your OS:
http://www.5starsupport.com/tutorial/hardening-windows.htm

Good luck :)



Posted by John John on July 28, 2007, 8:40 pm
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Kayman wrote:


> and scroll down to:
> Myth: Host-Based Firewalls Must Filter Outbound Traffic to be Safe.

That article itself is baloney. It is true that any malware can
circumvent a firewall's outbound protection but it is also true that a
lot of malware is detected by firewall outbound monitoring. The
outbound monitoring also alerts you when otherwise legitimate software
is trying to call home. Perhaps you like it better when things like
Media player call home without your knowledge, a pesky annoyance that
you should be aware of things like that.

The article states:

"Speaking of host firewalls, why is there so much noise about outbound
filtering? Think for a moment about how ordinary users would interact
with a piece of software that bugged them every time a program on their
computer wanted to communicate with the Internet..." What a pile of
baloney!"

Firewall have rules, it appears no one at Microsoft knows this, which
isn't really surprising to tell you the truth. Microsoft's logic is
that "you don't need seat belts if you have airbags". And you don't
need to know what it is that things like Media Player doing. Baloney
indeed!

John

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