SPAM IS A BIG HEADACHE FOR EVERY ONE ON THE NET.
“The activities of a small number of people are becoming a bigger problem for the Internet.” via Fight Spam on the Internet
Recently, I found another form of spam, which is becoming more and more popular: NET SEND SPAM.
What is NET SEND SPAM?
It works this way: on any networked Windows computer, anyone can type the following command in command line window:
NET SEND 127.0.0.1 Hello
A message box will appear with the greeting word “Hello”. Looks interesting, isn’t it? However, if you change the IP address to any other valid IP address and change Hello to your advertisement, the IP address owner will receive it. Moreover, a simple script can send the same message to thousands of IP addresses, or millions of, if the sender wants.
Still sounds interesting? Not at all! I don’t want this to inspire anyone to do it. Never do it and never give it a try. I am the angry person here who is fighting back with this kind of spam – NET SEND SPAM.
Net send spam under spotlight
Now Mr. Yan, who owns http://bestyan.vip.sina.com has come on board of the Net Send Spammers. Every two or three days, this guy will send Windows message to my networked computer in my home. I may be working or reading news or composing a weblog – no matter what I am doing – chances are, a gray dialog box pops up and says:
Message from ZMZ to 211.161.107.*** on 2002-9-22 23:28:40
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX http://bestyan.vip.sina.com XXXXXXXX
(Note: XXXXX is garbage characters that I cannot read on my computer)
It is annoying. It made me angry after I received six of such messages. I am almost mad after I receive more than ten of such messages. However, Mr. Yan seems to be a very good evangelist for his web site and does not care too much about my feelings. Later, I found he does not care about the feels of thousands of people. Keep reading to know how many people were affected…
Finally, after six invitations, I decided to visit this web site.
Visit the site
It is a normal personal web page. The owner seems to be fond of poems. It lets me feel not THAT bad since it is not a commercial site.
This guy has a guestbook too. I checked it, and found there are some one already yelling there for the spam they received. Some people said:
Please stop prompting your site using this kind of spam message
Some said:
I am in Korea. I cannot read the characters you sent to me, but I can see the web site address. I am feeling angry since you sent this message to me
I also posted a long message (half screen long? Maybe) to describe the feeling when I receive this message and asked him not to do that. In my post, I also quoted Mark Bernstein‘s suggestions on bloggers:
Though you write with passion about things that matter greatly, always remember that it’s a big world, filled with people and stories. Don’t expect the world to stop and listen
It worked. Within five minutes, my post was deleted from the guestbook, along with other negative posts.
To be honest, I was really shocked when I see people doing this:creating a web site; send messages to thousands of people, millions of, maybe; force them to read; DELETE posts on his personal guestbook when he doesn’t like.
I posted for the second time. This time, I added a note:
This message is deleted by our honored web owner, just as others who protests for his spam. I believe this message will be deleted again, just want those who saw this to know what happened.
What I expected is true. It is deleted within six hours.
Now, on bestyan’s guest book, there are still 21 entries. I found the webmaster will delete anything negitive and leave those compliments. It is bad. Really bad.
I know I can stop any message like this by stop the Messenger service in my computer. But I’d like to be involved in further spam and see how it evolves and how bad it will be.
Would you suggest what we can do to fight against NET SEND SPAM? Write your comments here.
Update
- Stoping Net Send Spam Nov 7, 2002
- Fighting Back for NET SEND SPAM Nov 20, 2002
Windows needs to write a new toggle to the net messenger that only allows net send messages from others people on the network. That way, it can still be used for real networjk announcements/emergencies (network going down in 5 minutes, building on fire, etc) but not for spam. Just a thought. Something like “net messenger localonly”
Brian McWilliams, a nice reporter at Wired.com http://www.wired.com/news/storylist/0,2339,483,00.html has written an article called “Spam Masquerades as Admin Alerts” one month ago on “Net Send Spam”. Here is the URL:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,55795,00.html
On the private email discussion with him, he pointed me to a URL that blocks Messenger Ad.
http://www.coffeecup.com/blocker/
I checked the web site and don’t want to pay for the money.
My reason is that it is OK for most people to turn the Messenger Service off without much problem. Corperate users may have been protected by firewall so they won’t receive this kind of Ad. Even if the firewall is not well configured, to add a filter in firewall is much cheaper that to buy everyone the software. Those who are most affected are home users. They connect to Internet via broadband, DSL, dial-up. For them, the administrator won’t send any message like “network going down in 5 minutes”, “building on fire” to them. They don’t use printer this way too. So simply turn off the Messenger service.
On Windows 2000 or XP, Start -> Run -> “Services.msc” -> Messenger -> Disable.
Let me know if any of you have better solutions.
Not a better, per say, solution than Jian Shuo Wang’s but another simple and free solution for home users to shut down the messenger service is to open a command prompt Start -> Run -> cmd.exe then type the following “net stop messenger” after which you’ll see “messenger service is stopping”.
To start it again for any reason open the command prompt again and type “net start messenger”
This is the equivalent of what Jian Shuo Wang’s suggestion.
I have had alot of customers call me regarding the abuse of this feature hopefully MS fixes it soon, i like one of the ideas on this page, i think the messenger service should only have ever been for local network machines.
Docslax,
Thanks for your information about the alternative way to disable Messenger service. I have added your comment into my steps on http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20021107_stop_net_send_spam.htm#000074
OK, so this takes a few mins and probably only works on XP but it’s a start.
On your dial up connection you have an internet connections firewall tab.
click this and block access to port 18 on both tcp and udp.
This will allow local admin alerts but block internet alerts.
No need to buy additional software just use what microsoft supplies.
Regards
Rich
Rich,
Good point. Enabling a firewall is definitely a good way to protect. I have addressed this in my later article http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20021120_flighting_back_for_net_send_spam.htm#000089
It is interesting that you metioned port 18 for UDP and TCP. Would you please explain why we need to disable port 18? Based on my knowledge, the spam is using port 35, 37 and 39 instead of 18. Thanks for sharing.
I have seen everything now. We have people that do not like eMail advertising and now they do not like a simple pop-up! Didn’t they teach you in school to CLICK YOUR DELETE Key or that little x that is in the top right hand corner of the pop-up.
So, what do you do when you go to your mail-box outside of your home? Do you beat up the postman when he delivers a piece of junk mail or do you go to court because you received the latest sales flyer from Radio Shack or maybe you call ABC and NBC when your favorite movie is on TV and here comes a commercial. I think not! This whole Spam Issue makes me sick and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Let people advetise…there is nothing wrong with it…it is how you got your website on one of the top search engine pages….OH!, Maybe you forgot that!!!
Apparently you have way to much time on your hands to even think about putting others down for achieving more out of life.
It is simple….There are lot’s of people on the Internet that are trying very hard to earn a secondary source of income while other people do absolutely nothing to help themselves to earn more money throughout the year.
If you are going to keep complaining about SPAM,
which NET SEND is NOT…DAHH!….at least have some common sense solutions to it all.
Please Remember to bring a SHOT-GUN with you the next time you are driving in a city and you see a sign on a building that is advertising that particular business and then take perfect aim and blow a whole in it. This way you can go to jail for a while and leave hard working people alone.
Get the point!
PS…How long will you leave this message on your board?
Full text of my reply can be found at http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20021221_let_people_advetisethere_is_nothing_wrong_with_it.htm#000122
Today, I saw a pro-spam comment posted on my entry of “Net Send” – Yet Another Type of Spam. Here is the quote:
So, what do you do when you go to your mail-box outside of your home? Do you beat up the postman when he delivers a piece of junk mail or do you go to court because you received the latest sales flyer from Radio Shack or maybe you call ABC and NBC when your favorite movie is on TV and here comes a commercial. I think not! This whole Spam Issue makes me sick and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Let people advetise…there is nothing wrong with it…it is how you got your website on one of the top search engine pages….OH!, Maybe you forgot that!!!
Click here to see full text of the comment.
Very good comment, isn’t it?
This comment helped me to further realize the diversity of the world. At first, I was astonished to see there are some one like Marketor who thinks highly of NET SEND – let me avoid to quote it as spam for a while. I also see how angry he/she was when I call NET SEND spam. These are two different ways of thinking the same thing.
To be honest, this message is a little bit offensive when he asked Didn’t they teach you in school to CLICK YOUR DELETE Key or that little x that is in the top right hand corner of the pop-up. But I am happy that there are some discussion around this, from another persepective.
“PS…How long will you leave this message on your board?” asked Marketer.
Why not keep it? I am not the one who will delete negative comment immediately. I will leave it as long as my site is still there.
But I still think net send advertisement is spam
So, what do you do when you go to your mail-box outside of your home? Do you beat up the postman when he delivers a piece of junk mail or do you go to court because you received the latest sales flyer from Radio Shack or maybe you call ABC and NBC when your favorite movie is on TV and here comes a commercial. I think not! This whole Spam Issue makes me sick and you should be ashamed of yourself.
It is true that I, and most of us, accept commercial on TV. Although nobody turned on TV just for commercial, we can accept it since it is still reasonable for the advertiser to pay for the movie. We see the movie since someone paid. It is the same for junk mail in my mailbox – I mean post-mail box.
Please Remember to bring a SHOT-GUN with you the next time you are driving in a city and you see a sign on a building that is advertising that particular business and then take perfect aim and blow a whole in it. This way you can go to jail for a while and leave hard working people alone.
It is also acceptable since the advertiser paid the building for the advertise. I don’t care unless the ad is too ugly.
However, if the advertisements go furthure, extend outside the boundary they should be kept within, and enter my personal boundary, I will think it as spam. That is, if someone goes into my house and put the flyer on my desk when I am working, when they paint the advertisement on the white wall of my guest room, if someone seize me tightly and force me to listen to him how good the product is, no matter whether I am walking on the street or having my dinner – I believe they are outside the boundary of acceptable advertisement and should be treated as spam.
Why net……
Thanks to all who posted. I was being plauged by messanger service webpopup. Seeing these dialoge boxes pop-up from out of nowhere gave me quite a scare. I thought my PC had been pooched by some bad shareware. After reading through the posts I realized it was just some lammer and company invading my personal space.
Was wondering… If I have the IP of the lame-ass University who sent this out could I then Spam them back?
Hello “Net Send” Fans…LOL,
It seems as though the Host of this site: Jian Shuo Wang, seems to think that I was a maybe a bit brash in my PRO – Net Send Letter that was posted on December 20th.
Jian’s Reply:
It is true that I, and most of us, accept commercial on TV. Although nobody turned on TV just for commercial, we can accept it since it is still reasonable for the advertiser to pay for the movie. We see the movie since someone paid. It is the same for junk mail in my mailbox – I mean post-mail box.
END COMMENT
Contrary to popular belief, the Program to run a Net-Send Advertising Campaign is expensive to purchase and it is even more expensive to purchase a campaign of this nature through a third party to let them send it out for you.
So, in comment to your thoughts. This is in fact PAID ADVERTISEMENT! The cost of the program, set-up time, ad-trackers, auto-responders, and ultimately the time factor and band-width the system uses. I could really go on for a while
on the subject of (who is paying for what) but I will be nice and refrain from getting political here.
Additional thoughts: When I turn on my computer and log in through Internet Explorer or Aol or Compuserve, I ALWAYS have to delete all of the pop-up ADS that screem across my screen the first 15 seconds of signing on. I am sure this also happens to you and millions of others each day.
Question? Do you send complaints and threats to those ISP companies or do you just accept it? The answer is that you accept it becuse it is now considered normal…just like TV Commercials, just like Junk Post-Office snail-mail Delivery, just like UGLY Bill Boards on the outside of a traditional Business.
We must all learn to recognize that the Internet is now becoming a Traditional Business and will be here till the end of time.
People griped about ads going to their eMail Boxes and now we have a new definition for the word “SPAM” instead of luncheon meat. We also have another called “UCE” or Unsolicited Commercial EMAIL. The GOVERNMENT has stepped in and said that EMAIL ADVERTISING is not a good thing. There is no standard of Law nor any common law over this subject. It is simply the bigger ISP’s that are scaring the little program owners with threats of blocking their servers out.
It makes me laugh when somebody that lives in Califronia threatens to call the Law on somebody that lives in Cambodia or China. It is so ignorant to think that they would have a leg to stand on! Headlines: “Man in Califronia Brings Suit to Old Woman in Cambodia that send him an email selling her recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies” Tell me this is not what is actually happening, it is true and it is truly funny to think about.
Come on people. This is not anything more than paid advertising, we just want a fair shake from the Internet Cooperate Giants that control the Internet with their HIGH – Out of our price range,
advertising prices.
Online advertising is getting very expensive and most of it makes claims that simply do not work at all.
The next time you receive a little pop-up window from one of the net-send users, please take a moment to check out what they have to offer and just consider it a commercial break from what-ever you are doing.
Also, there are a bunch of places on the Internet that you can download a tiny little program that will prevent you from ever receiving another ad of this nature again.
I hope that I was able to maybe shed some light on this subject and enable you to look through the eyes of an Online Marketer who earns just over $3,000 per month Online. This is my small income to support six children of which three are being adopted by my beautiful wife and myself.
Have a Blessed New Year!
POP-UP…LOL
hi Marketer,
Well, I thought your point is novel. However, your later reply doesn’t answer some of the questions raised in Jian Shuo WANG’s reply.
For example, it is a fact that we commonly accept TV ads, but it doesn’t mean that we can generalize that to its cyberworld counterparts. The context, to say the least, has changed and I would say a thorough study of its pros and cons need to be carried out before one can soundly sell this idea.
From another point of view, as Jian Shuo WANG has pointed out, the degree of harassment of the two, spam and ads, are not the same. In addition, one has the freedom to switch to other channels when there is an ad in the current channel (note he can still “use” his tv), but do you have such a choice when somebody else spams your primary email account (you cannot switch it for many reasons) or NET SEND messages to your computer?
In a word, i think such spamming in the cyber world is not ethical, although one might make a large amount of money from it.
Yeah, now this ass marketer is telling us that if he has 3 adopted children and 3 of his own, he has the right to spam. so now if i go an adopt 6 kids, and have six of my own, i guess i can go and kill too, because i will be making a meanie 3000 dollars to feed my kids. what an asshole this guy is, and how stupid can he become ??
Hey AntiMarketer,
There is always one Jerk in the Crowd and
AntiMarketer….CONGRATULATIONS…YOU ARE
OUR NEXT WINNER….or is that whiner!
Do you get off on putting people down with
children? I was simply stating a fact to
help the readers of this thread to get to
know me a little better and that I not some
freak or anything like that.
I do NOT use my children or family as a ploy
for a free ticket to use NetSend software.
I do not need it.
If you want to get upset at something then how about this. You purchased a computer with Windows already installed on it and MICROSOFT Enables{toggles ON} your NetSend Configuration as the default to be able to receive these messages.
Have an attorney contact Bill Gates or maybe they
are just a little to big for you to handle.
Everyone is picking on the little guys and not
one person so far has been able to show me a LAW or a REAL Definition of the word SPAM that has
NetSend or IP2IP Messenging mentioned in it one time.
I am asking this board to please use another term
other than SPAM when addressing this form of advertising.
The word SPAM is incorrect, go and see for yourself. Spam relates ONLY to EMAIL…period!
Spam – Definition at URL: http://www.whatis.com
How about Bologna that me be better….lol.
It has been great sharing with the rest of you.
I will return and post again shortly.
Happy New Year!
Hello Everyone,
Well, first I have to say that I agree somewhat with marketer.
You pay for cable or satellite to see your movies on tv, then they send you their advertisements that they paid for.
It’s pretty much the same with the internet. You paid for access, and someone else is paying to advertise where you can see it.
Just like tv, you can change the channel, but you have to press the button on the remote to do so. On your conputer, that is attached to the internet, you just have to press the little button on the mouse when it is over the X.
Pretty much the same thing.
I do not like ads on tv, and I do not like spam email. I do not like messenger ads eigther, but I have at least have the power to shut them off.
I know that it seems silly, but you can’t stop the ads on tv, snail mail, radio, billboards or any other type of advertising. At least, you can stop the net send advertisements. (If you want to.)
It is all the same. It is paid advertising that is used to get our attention. It is our choice if we look at it. That is why we have a remote on our tv, and a dial on our radio and a garbage can for our snail mail and a delete key for our email and the little X-box on our pop-up’s.
If we do not even want this inconvience, then we need to sell our tv’s, radio’s, and computers and move into the country and start a farm where we will not see these things.
Just my thoughts.
Have a Happy New Year.
hey i found this out on a website you can thank me later 8) keep up the work, next time research the internet it can be easier 8P
Disabling the MS Messenger Service
Windows XP
1. Click on the Start button and open the control panel.
2. Open the Performance and Maintenance control panel and go to Administrative Tools.
3. Now double-click on Services, then scroll to Messenger.
4. Double-click Messenger and click Stop to stop the service.
5. Change the startup type to Disable and click Apply at the bottom.
6. Click OK to exit window.
Windows 2000
1. Click on the Start button -> Settings -> Control Panel.
2. Double click on Administrative Tools.
3. Now double-click on Services, then scroll to Messenger.
4. Double-click Messenger and click Stop to stop the service.
5. Change the startup type to Disable and click Apply at the bottom.
6. Click OK to exit window.
Online Resources
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,3374542,00.html
http://www.mynetwatchman.com/kb/security/articles/popupspam/index.htm
This thread started out somewhat interesting and informative, even though I already knew about the Messenger Service.
Some boastingly thought this sort of SPAM should continue. I don’t think so. There are certain types of Junk mail it is illegal to send, there are some forms of advertising on the Television that is illegal (subliminal), even though everyone has a TV and is capable to receive subliminal messages, it has been deemed illegal. Net Send messages take processing cycles and comsume memory and network bandwidth, which means I have fewer resources to perform more effective functions. Ditto to Web Popups and Popbacks. These things consume resources and are unsolicited advertising.
It is a low-cost form of advertising that is annoying. However, as long as there are creative people out there we will still find new sorts of ads coming in. Fortunately, we can either turn the service off or write a script to close all Messages after a time duration, just in case my network administrator wants to send me an important message.
–Your Workstation is being bugged and will restart randomly, without warning!!
iX
In response to the pro spam ad post by Marketer, the patronising attitude of telling me to click “that little x” is not appreciated. Having to close the pop up is not the problem here, it’s the intrusive nature of the advertising. What right does anyone have to force a box with their useless little message onto your screen. Not only is it annoying, but it can potentialy destroy someones work. What if you were in the middle of debugging an application, or creating something in photoshop and suddenly a pop up appears which causes your main application to lose focus and screw up.
MS need to implement a security feature into messenger which allows you to define a list of ip addresses which your machine will accept messages from.
As for firewalls, they can limit functionality of a number of programs which require the use of an internet connection, and need a lot of mucking around to get around this. unless you are a corporate business with sensitive data, then you should not need to set up a firewall, therefore a security feature to messenger is the best option.
So for the reference of any future marketing bod, we do not give a crap what your selling, it’s probably shit, so stop bothering us.
Hello
im gonna start out and say that im a hacker in training so to say im not great at it but im learning. the Ethics of say things about spam and spamers. As a hacker i take advantage of networks in ways some wouldnt undersatnd. i beleive the use of net send is so wrong its crazy. Its the abuse of the TCP/IP network.
It is good to see the message from Marketer. I thought I was the only one who thought in a similar manner. While I don’t necessarily agree with how Marketer made his comments – the underlying theme I think is OK.
NET SEND messenging is less intrusive than spam email advertising. The critical difference, as has been pointed out in the prior messages, is the ability to turn NET SEND off.
This functionality should handle any of the anti-NET SEND objections.
However, what I think should be discussed is the concept of WHY? – – Why did spamming become popular in the first place – why is NET SEND being used as a means of advertising?
The answer is: IT WORKS!!!
Quite frankly, I believe that many people who are upset with both spamming and NET SENDing are only upset because someone (other than themselves) came up with an idea and is making a profit at selling it…and they are not.
If legitimate email advertising (not spamming) didn’t work, then spamming would have never worked…
NET SEND is simply an extension of legitimate email advertising.
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH EMAIL ADVERTISING!
I would love to hear responses from people who believe that email advertising is inappropriate…Most email advertising occurs on an opt-in basis only! There is no spamming. Yes, of course, some people take it too far and belong in the spamming category – however, I believe that the word “spam” is being applied too broadly.
Opt-in email advertising is not only ethical but also appropriate for small business owners in today’s internet society.
I could go on for a while – but I think that my point has been made – IF YOU DON’T WANT TO RECEIVE THE MESSAGES – THEN TURN THE OPTION OFF.
IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE!
Start->Run then type cmd and then just type net stop Messenger and hit enter. All your problems with this kind of spam will be over.
All you “spam isn’t what you think it is” people are retarded. It’s obvious that you people are the numbnuts sending this crap. We don’t like it. If you love spam so much give us all your ip address, and we’ll spam the hell out of you, and we’ll do it using a dynamic IP…how do you like them apples?
In Win9x, open “notepad c:\windows\hosts” and on a blank line type the following;
127.0.0.1 211.161.107.***
127.0.0.1 http://bestyan.vip.sina.com
Save the file without any extensions (hosts) and problem solved.
In Win2000/XP , the open “notepad c:\%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts” and take it from there. This will also block those annoying pop-ups on the I’net.
PESK,
Why the method you described should work? I didn’t see the idea behind this.
Jian Shuo Wang
Thanks for this web site, it has been informative. I am still searching for more information, though. I recieve Net Send Messages all the time. As the network admin for an ISP, I am trying to learn more so that I can educate my customers. I have been performing test and can’t figure the scope of Net Send. For example: I log into one of my servers via terminal services and try to net send to my self, but can’t do it. I’ve tried using a variety of formats when addressing the client: IP address, host name, computer name – with no success. I don’t understand. How does all these other people send these messages?
my friends and i have used net send for years at the university we attend. i was shocked to find out that people have began using such a useful tool as a means of mass advertising. i would like to point out to the readers out there that these people CLAIM to pay thousands, and if they are foolish enough they actually may, but in fact anyone with an extra 15 minutes can send these spam messages to every ip in the world for free. it is not difficult, it takes nothing more than 5 or 6 lines of code in a bat file to do it, we commonly use this to send messages over the networks at school, but we limit our message to the people it is relivant to. And as for the t.v. analogy, when you turn off the t.v., it doesn’t store up all the commecials we missed and force us to watch them next time we use the t.v., as these annoying messages do when i log onto my computer. If these spamers feel they are not doing any wrong, why don’t they add their ip to the end of the message so we can send them a “friendly reply”. and yes, you can turn off net send, but for someone who uses it nearly every day as a part of your education, turning it off is not a feasible solution. and for those of you out there who like like to try some revenge, you should download a program called “angry ip scanner” , you can use it to discover the ip of these spamers and send them a few messages of your own, if you would like to know how, e-mail me at Bcat22@hotmail.com, and for those of you who are wondering, i delete over 200 spam e-mail messages a day, so use a subject in your message or i’ll never see it.
Ryan
Shawnee State University
Computer engineering dept.
its ryan again.
Mr.Reed, if you email me, i can tell you exactly what the problem is, our school runs its own isp too, and we had this same problem. i would rather not put detailed instructions on the web so every idiot on the net can send millions of messages, but if you send me a message at Bcat22@hotmail.com, i’ll gladly help you out.
Can’t you just “send them a “friendly reply”” using the username that comes up at the beginning of the message? I tried this and it said my reply was sent successfully. And net messages aren’t harmless, I’ve had them freeze-up my computer while writing a paper and I had to start it all over. Bottom line they just extremely rude and intrusive, those damned windows will pop up on top of anything.
no, actually that usually will not work. if your message say it comes from http://www.blablabla.com, what the sender has done is change their computers network name to the webite’s name they are working for. so when you send a message to http://www.blablabla.com, you are actually sending the message to the server that is hosting the site, and almost all these servers use some kind of firewall, which blocks net send messages. so when you send a message and it says “message sent”, it truly was sent and recieved, but blocked by a firewall. so really the only way to send a message to the actuall people who are doing this is to get there ip. And even then an average user couldn’t send them a message because i am sure that they hate getting these messages as much as we do and have turned off their messager service. But with the proper knowledge, even a dissabled messenger service cant stop them from commin in. but once again, i’m not about to put this information on the net or those of you who have turned off your messenger service would surely start getting these messages again. as with anything, if you e-mail me, i’ll share any info you might want, with the stipulation that you don’t use it against anyone other than those who use it against us. e-mail me at Bcat22@hotmail.com…put “net send” in the subject
Hmm. I am trying to track down how this works, but for a different reason. I personally think that disabling any service that ‘might’ be useful is sort of dumb, so here is my idea:
So far it seems that WinPopUp (the 9x version) and Net Send send a request to port 135 to find out what the correct port of the messenger is. You ‘could’ block this port for all users, except those IPs that you allow to use them, but a decent hacker could simply spam the most common ports it might use. Not to mention the possibility that 135 may be used to request port numbers for other services.
So here is my idea. Have a firewall like service that only allow reciept from IPs you tell it to allow. When it start up, have it poll the 135 port to get the actual port assigned to the messenger, then only pass messages on that port that come from a valid list. That way it can still be used for the original purpose by allowing ‘your’ network or some other authorized IP(s) to access it, but kills the spam.
Of course this is just a theory… I don’t currently have NT/XP, nor do I have WinPopUp installed, so I am just nosing around as an intellectual excersise. ;) I do seriously wonder why no one else has even considered this sort of solution though.
In theory thay would work, but for those of us that use this service, the task of knowing the ip of every person who could potentialy need to send a message out is way too complex. even though most of the students use the schools isp, which has a set ip range, others of us use the local cable service for high speed conections, wich uses a seperate set. each isp has its own set range of ip’s and every time we log on,we get a different ip from the servers.i suppose you could allow a set range of ip’s to come in, but even then if you need to talk to people on several diferent isp networks, the number of ip’s would be huge, and in a big city, your bound to be including at least a few of these spamers in that range.
Theres an article in the ms Knowledge Base.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/communicate/stopspam.asp
Please tell me how to fight this unwanted unasked for and inappropriate messenging. Is there a file or something I can deleate so as not to have to deal with this? Why is it getting past my firewall?
Thank you ,
Bryan
Bryan,
Refer to this article to see if it helps.
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20021107_stop_net_send_spam.htm#000074
I hate `NET SEND` spam too, yet it never bothers me because between my computers and the cable modem there is a router.
Rule of thumb: Never directly connect a home owned Windoze driven computer to the Internet. Even if you have one computer, put a router between the cable modem and the computer(s). Mind you, if you’re on a dial-up, use a decent firewall.
worst. post. ever.
To ‘Marketer’,
You may think that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, but in fact it breaches civil liberty, just as spam email does. Junk mail in the post is different because there is legislation ruling that junk mail cannot be delivered to a postbox marked ‘no junk mail’ or something to that meaning. There is no way to stop your spam, and turning off the messenger service is not an option to many people such as myself.
Oh, and news for you and others like you: What you are doing may soon be a criminal offence, punishable by time in jail. Read this article. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=399740
I receive 30 to 40 of these a day. Some at the same time. I know 2 wrongs don’t make a right but I think we all should get together(like maybe a 1000 or so)& net send back at the same time…Hmmm, I wonder how many it would take to eat up the senders bandwidth and resources? Or maybe a script where you net send back for like an hour…No I guess that would be wrong too..For now I guess messenger will be turned off…Sad that I have to run popup blockers, ad blocker and now block messages. What is next a little salesman taking over your pc and the only way to rid him is a reboot…geezzz go away…nobody wants any….
Right….. Im aware that everyone has their own right to their opinion, and im glad they do otherwise i would have no reason to post this little bit of fun. So yay for freedom of speech.
Ok, first some bitching
Quote from marketer “Spam – Definition at URL: http://www.whatis.com“
Lets take a word that everyone knows and loves… like bitch. the original meaning of this word is something along the lines of a femal dog in heat. however in recent times it has gained a few extra meanings, some recognised by the people in the oxford press some not so.
if i was to call u a bitch, one could assume that you are a domineering female, however if i was to call u my bitch you may be recognised as submisive male homosexual (not that there is anything wrong with that, im just using it to illustrate a point so dont bitch about it please).
my point is that the meaning of a word is changed by the people that use it, (i.e. us, not the acedemics who put them in the dictionary), the meaning of the word is then changed if enough people use the word for that purpose. so dont get hung up on “Definition of SPAM” cause chances are as times changem, so will definitions. so get over it.
Furthermore if u say that is so easy to clik the little “X” well it will be pretty easy to replace the word SPAM with something else where u dont like it cause u dont even have to click anything. So again… get over it.
now onto the issue of SPAM (because thats what i think it is) net sends and unsolicited emails. As was previously stated, the time needed to create a net send spa—-er–advertising program is minimal and done in spare time (i assume it is not easy to make a living purely from unsolicited net sends/emails/whatever although i have never tried and don’t really know), so if u buy it u are wasting ur money.
Saying that the advertisement is paid is a load of crap. As you stated this would be a secondary source of income (if you wernt doing it, u would be doing nothing important) so time factor must be considered free (unlike the time it takes me to delete them all). If u buy bandwith from an isp u are buying exactly that… bandwith. not bandwith to be used just for ads, but bandwith to do whatever u want with. so it must also be considered free because if u didnt send the shit u wouldnt need as much anyway. that leaves the advertisement itself which is free as opposed to billboards where you are paying for the ad and the ad only to be posted at a certian cost (material costs like the paper its printed on would be an extra as would paying the guys to stick it up there.).So once again u are wrong.
onto emails… im pretty sure that i havent signed up to be offered digital cameras and inkjet cartriges from dealers that only service the USA when i dont even live there!
now onto the intrusion and annoyance factor….
this is really self explanatory and if u want to argue to me that these ads shouldnt (or dont) annoy me and that i should click on them because i’ll give some poor bastard a new lease in life, u need to get ur head examined. I find them intruive, annoying time consuming and offensive.
If you have enough intelligence to set a scheme like this up you should also have enough intelligence to go into something more creative like web design where you dont directly send me annoying boring shit and you can still make money in your spare time. the truth is that net send advertising takes basically no time to set up and is the lazy and inconsiderate man (or woman’s) way to make money. it takes advantage of legitimate systems that could otherwise be put to good use.
if u bothered to read this whole comment… well thanks for listening to my bit, hope i didnt offend anyone too much. oh and marketer… it isnt nice to insult other people so take it a bit easier on people who are only expressing their opinion.
i hope you have a happy festive holiday of your choice
I was quite annoyed to read the comments of “so called marketer” posted on December 20, 2002 at 02:17 PM and I hope he reads the following. First of all the owner of this site got it on one of the top search engine pages not because he has used an innocent corporate orientated program to send unsolicited messages to everyone and anyone, or has he used any sort of unsolicited email. He has got it there because of people like the “so called marketer” and people want to know how to get rid of the net send pop ups, so they have searched the web to find pages like this which might offer solutions. SPAM is unsolicited messages sent without request, hence this new form of “so called marketing” using net send is indeed as the site owner puts it SPAM. I have not given my IP address to anyone asking for ads to be sent to me. If I gave my email address to a website, fair enough, they can send me emails. If I purchase a TV and TV licence to watch “commercial TV” I dont mind ads. Then there is the billboards that the “so called marketer” says we should shoot, but at least they serve a purpose, what they are not doing is invading my privacy. Net send is not supposed to be used in this way as the “so called marketer” should well know if he/she has any formal qualifications in how marketing should be done. I agree that it is an intuitive way of getting your message to people, but it should not be done at the expense of peoples privacy and I hope it is stopped very soon. Thanks for reading.
To “Marketer”
Gimme a break. NET SEND spam is equivalent to someone knocking on your door every 50 seconds while you are trying to have an important conversation on the phone. If you had to put down the phone to answer the doorbell every few minutes, wouldn’t you get tired of it ?
What a goofball.
Hello All,
I am just learning about the NET SEND command in my course at school. We send little messages to eachother over the net for fun. I dont think that anyone should abuse this system because it is easy and free (or nearly free). There are many ways of advertising throught todays media.
The company that i work for use NET SEND messages to warn us with whichever that is needed to know. I agree with all the people that has taken the time to post messages about their thoughts on this topic.
I understand the importance of using NET SEND in an office envirnment, but totally disagree to the “Spamers” or anyother seconds meat dealers, abusing the system. There should be a law that would be broken by using this service wrongfully. But i know that there may be something in the future for this but i will have to move on with this issue. The world will not end over this but it will slow down any progress we and the rest of the talented programs from getting to.
Thanks for listening and i hope that the big “Ham By-Product” reads this and learns from his mistakes!!!
Peace.
Exactly, Peace.
I’ve receive some net send spam few weeks ago, but that is in my office, at home, i use a win98 server to share the connection, and i havent get any net send spam, is win98 will stop the net send spam? BTW, i do found some spam mail have some of the intersting product, but net send spam, i can’t found any.
everyone,
advertisement is a neccessary thing, that is actually how most web sites are still alive, is due to advertisements, that is how any product makes it way into the world is via any advertisment medium (tv, word of mouth, web sites).
but..
marketer,
there is a limit to what advertisements should do,
you mentioned about the billboards, and commercials, if we don’t want to watch them, we just turn our head. with the net send messages, pop up ads, and UN-solicited email, we are on the electronic road, and they are in the middle of it. we can’t just turn our head and pass them, close our eyes, and they go away. they are up until we close them. Given we can turn off our messenger service, so because of some ignorance, we have to disable a feature on our machines, i have 2 co-located servers, each one uses the messenger to send error messages to the other, sends the last error it had, so i know what went wrong.
as for pop-ups, there are Some free ad-blockers, but they also block neccesary links, pop ups should not be used as advertisments, on-screen inside the web space should be the only areas of advertisments. Un-solicited email, any email that i did not directly sign up for should not be sent to me. my email address should not be sold, should not be used in any other fasion other than what i specified, which i get a shitload of spam messages a day, like i need to know how cheap i can get cigaretts when i don’t smoke, or that i can get free access to some porn site, or any other type of email that when the only thing i signed up for was for computer hardware and software.
in conclusion,
there are some “advertisment manners” which should be obeyed by the advertisment companies (or whoever else does advertising). and there are some “manners” which the consumer should obey as well.
advertisers should not block us from doing what we had started out to do, by taking our window focus away from our initial program we are in, is not right, using the far right side of the page, its there, but not intrusively there.
as a consumer have to understand that advertisments are there, hoping and wishing that some day there will be actual laws to enforce certain policies, but they are there.
but. any net send message i receive, i track them down and send them an email to remove me from any list they have. any 2nd net send i get from them, i post their IP address on hacker boards. that has so far worked out for me.
got my net sends down to one every other week, rather than 6-10 a day.
just my 2 cents on the topic.
Yes its the Jam Man again.
Yes there are many free downloads out there to stop certian pop-ups…but really do they work. I have tried a bunch and sure they stop the pop-ups from some websites, but it doesnt get them all. The net send messages still get thru unless you turn it off. For most, they dont know how to turn them off (unless they have read this whole posting) and they have to either live with it or have to pay someone to fix the problem.
Crazy….
I never thought of that, posting the IP address on hackers boards, that is a good one. But remeber if that person is messaging you with your IP address, then the same thing can happen to you. And the people that send the messages have more time then the most of us put together.
But it is a good idea.
anyways.
Peace
you can stop it with out paying lots of box :))
just type in services.msc in your run and enter from the new window click on the messenger disable it and stop it that it :)))))))
All who praise these pop ups are missing some important facts for one they prey are the ignorant by making them think they were attacked also the are popping up while you are not surfing or even on the net (I have DSL)so it not like watching TV because when you turn on your TV or Radio or even when you surf but these are jerks are spamming my computer while it is idle and they are using a security flaw that could give them a way to do even more harm so you would have no choice to buy their product this is not advertising it is an invasion
Also dont forget they want you to buy a program to disable somthing you can do for free by yourself that is deception
Great site buy the way
“For most, they dont know how to turn them off (unless they have read this whole posting) and they have to either live with it or have to pay someone to fix the problem.”
I have just seen an advertisment on a net send pop up advertising how to stop pop ups for ever, how ironic.
I also heard from a friend that there are some places charging people ?.50 per minute for a phone call to tell people how to stop net send. Pop up stoppers do work for internet browsing, I use a free version of one myself, but it dosent stop net send. People need to be educated how to stop it, but hey, if they are silly enough to fork out for it, hell mend ’em.
The sooner everyone knows how to stop this the better I say.
Hey All
It seems that i am one of the regulars here. I do know that it is quite easy to stop popups off the net, and also how to disable the messaging service for net send messages.
As i said up there “they dont know how to turn them off (unless they have read this whole posting)” that is exactly it. Most people dont see this site, or ones like it so they dont know how to disable it. Just like the Blaster virus, i know how it was added to the computer, what exactly it did, how to stop it, remove it and prevent it from ever coming back. But most people dont, thats my point. So they spend money for people to teach them. If you do have the virus on yer computer and this message is emailed to you call this number 1 866 272 2338 (1866PCSAFETY) for the removel.
Gotta jet, later dudes!
thank you, thank you, thank you!! I have been receiving a lot of messages from defeatmessage.com and others. thanks to you I have finally stopped them. I really appreciate people like you who are trying to make things better on the web for everyone–including computer illiterates like me. Thank you again and i’ll be checking back again for other helpful hints. Keep up the good work!
On August 23 I noticed my ADSL modem acting differently than usual. It appeared as if my systems were being pinged approximately 9 times per minute. A hardware firewall (internal to my router) stopped the pings from reaching any of my computers.
To make a long story as short as possible….
I disconnected my router, enabled a software firewall, and connected a Win XP Pro system directly to the modem. The cause of the pings is a messenger pop-up informing me my system is vulnerable and I should visit a web site to purchase software.
I contacted my Internet Service Provider and was informed that there is nothing currently in place at the ISP level to stop the constant pings. I am able to effectively stop the messenger pop-ups, but the constant pings interrupt downloads, ruin online gaming, and cause router data collisions that have resulted in the need to re-boot systems.
I can accept a once a day messenger pop-up attempt but pinging my system several times a minute cannot be considered a marketing practice. It has resulted in disabling the functionality of my systems and can best be described as theft.
I researched the present cost of the software packages that allow anyone the ability to generate these bothersome pings. The most expensive package I saw advertised is $97.00 US and the least expensive is under 10 dollars. All of the packages (by some strange coincidence) had very similar text descriptions.
One final comment….
I used a slide rule in school.
Jeffreyw,
It sounds to me that you are loving the net sending of messages. The time you took to prevent it should never need doing, but there are lonely people out there, that feel that they have the right to bug people or see how far they can go. As for your research on software for pinging an IP addess over and over again. LOL you know how simple it is to ping and net send someone over and over again?
I almost want to type it up in here to show how easy it is, but i will not because i dont need to give anymore info to the people that have way too much time on their hands than i do at least. What i can say is, if anyone has ever worked with DOS and knows how to create a .bat file can continue to ping and net send all they want. I have set it up at school(for fun, no harm done) that i can send hundreds of net send messages in a minute. It is very simple, almost too simple. Basicaly my point is that you gave another example to what i said in my last postings. Sure it is common knowledge for us techies, or to people that research and research till they find the answer, but for the people that dont have the time to do so, or dont see a need for them to learn…they pay someone to remove/fix the problem and sometimes pay to learn.
So to all those people out there that are reading this and is trying to figure out how it is done. Good luck finding the answer and please dont abuse it as it will come back to you in the future. AND i can promise you that!
Peace
You know, in the US, the government is working on the no-call list to deter telemarketing. A lot of US states already have some sort of no-call list in effect at this very moment. Now, telemarketing has been around for quite a bit longer than internet advertising. I guess by Marketers reasoning we could just do away with telephones if we don’t want to deal with it anymore. So why are no-call lists being passed into law?
Because the government has found that that sort of advertising is intrusive and the people have spoken up and said we don’t want this crap anymore. Actually over 50 million people have stood up and said they don’t want the crap anymore.
Unsolicited emails: Yet again, another law that the government has deemed appropriate to fight intrusive advertising.
Net Send Spam: Honestly, I think I would rather receive email spam than net-send spam.
So, as I turn off my messenger service, install anti-spam software and check my caller id, let me just say that it seems that of all these posts here, there are 2 or 3 that defend “spamming” and 30+ that are against.
Damn…too bad it’s not a democracy.
FW
Hey Marketer,
You claim to make a decent living from internet marketing, so I’ve become very curious, what is it that you sell? Tell me your website so I can have a look.
aml
yeah sure u get post mail and u get banners on giant billboards while you are driving and hell na will i ever go out and kill my mailman “HE IS NOT THE ONE WHO MAKES THE SPAM CAPN DIPSHIT” sorry for the language but someone has to tell this guy he is a D&%K. HERE IS A SCENARIO FOR YOU SMARTASS CAN U TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES U HAVE BEEN DRIVING IN UR CAR AND ONE OF THOSE BANNERS HAVE JUMPED IN FRONT OF UR WINDSCREEN !!!! HUH…
oh oh i know the answer hmm…. 000000000 = 0
wow and the postman its not his spam (said earlier) and he doesnt come into your home and showe it in front of ur face until u say “god dam get it out of my face fool” does he
and by the way the radio shak mags or fliers come like once a WEEK!!! or mabye if u get a persistant fool once a DAY!! not 14 times a day or as i have once had 76 DAM TIMES
i am a hacker and i do wrong shit all the time but to me and bad ppl only PPL LIKE U
((NOW a test)) lets see if u speaking shit or weather u say what u do and do what u say i am issuing u a challange or a chance to prove urself i say “gimme ur ip and give it to everyone in this forum and we will message you 10 – 20 – 200 times a day to our favourite sites and u tell me if u like it ayy D*$K” if u do not face upto this challange then either shut up and go to hell or eat ur own words and take a polaroid for me :D
ill be checking back and i wanna see some results
ITS SPAM COCK when u gonna realise it
ps. sorry bout the spelling and slang (and swearing) we will see what chicken boy does :)
If you have XP there is a quick and easy way around such annoying messages, and no it is not pulling the plugs from your computer. If you open up control panel, then open up adminstrative tools, then open up services you will get a list of services that are currently running on your computer. To stop NET SENDs from reaching your computer disable the Messanger Service. Do not worry this is will not affect AIM, MSN, ICQ, or any such messanger.
Sincerely,
White Hat
BSc. DeVry Institute of Technology Calgary, AB
If you have XP there is a quick and easy way around such annoying messages, and no it is not pulling the plugs from your computer. If you open up control panel, then open up adminstrative tools, then open up services you will get a list of services that are currently running on your computer. To stop NET SENDs from reaching your computer disable the Messanger Service. Do not worry this is will not affect AIM, MSN, ICQ, or any such messanger.
Sincerely,
White Hat
BSc. DeVry Institute of Technology Calgary, AB
I have recently seen these annoying ads, and I know of a way to get rid of them in XP. If you open up control panel, then open administrator tools, and then services you will get a list of services that are currently running on your computer. If you select the Messanger Service and disable it you will no longer receive NET SENDs. I also noticed that it is a good idea to disable the Alerter Service too.
White Hat
BSc. Devry Institute of Technology, Calgary, AB.
Hello! I’ve been testing the net send, andother dos commands and stuff like that bec i hope to use it foto help my bussinus later in the future, but i have notice of what i’ve learned so far that if u have a good firewall on your pc then it will stop the net send from comming thought! well i got to go for now please visit my webstie if u like it’s not don’t yet, and just to let u know if you can’t see stereograms then u mite not be able to look at my site :D lol well peace!!!!!
we are suppliers of world class leather goods and are looking for some software by which we can broadcast our message if you have any kindly send us the same.
thank you
surtani
hehe what you wanna do is get a java serversocket up on the corect port.. i was making a chatroom for my ict coursework and i think i had it on port 1234 or 1025 or something (under 1024 is reserved so it wasnt down there) and i kept getting loads of those in my application while they werent popping up
best way to stop it is probably blocking the port on a hardware firewall
but anyway just set up a java serversocket on port 1234 to accept multiple sockets into a thread each and get it to write out any messages it receives, its funny as crap.. and u get all the header info etc (its not unreadable characters its just showing up in iso-8859-1 instead of binary so it comes up as loads of crap, just run it though an adodb.stream converter in vb and u get all the info u need to get back at them ^_^
If you do not like netsend. Turn it off. I did
Hello all. I think using net send to force your ads is the stupidest thing to do. YOu take up your mem usage and bandwidth just in the software to scan ips and send messages. But disabling the service is not something that i’d do. I feel the messenger service is quite usefull because it can be used to comunicate across the network. I’m behind a hardware firewall so when people send messages to me, my router just thinks to itsself what the hell is this? I suggest putting yourself behind a router if not already. If you’ve got dialup just get a firewall. I recommend kerio or cigate. If someone asks to send a message, your firewall will pop up and say for instance, scvhost.exe is trying to receive tcp packate on port 135. deny it and check any checkboxes that say remember this option or add to filter lists. THen click ok. YOu’ll never receive another.
There are several tools available in market that can filter incomming messages based on origin (in network, out of network, ip address etc).
Can we expect the similar control by Microsoft itself as its Net command configuration
ebru just go on this vallah
its soo mad
well, you may try to shutdown the “messenger” service.
Login as admin, then either right click my computer, manage, or go to ctrl pannel, and choose service, messenger, disabled.
See replacement for net send and messenger service:
http://www.fomine.com/net-send-gui.html
FUCK off
I think there are some arguments around here for what is ethical advertising and what is not.
There are some people who thinks net send ads is ethical, spam email is ethical, etc. For these kind of people, I honor their way of thinking.
Unethical advertising is when it is intrusive, and disturbs personal space.
Net Send is an unethical ads, why? Because it intrudes our computer, which is our personal space. Internet is a public space, but our computer is our own personal space. Our house is our personal space, but our mailbox (both physical and electronic) is a limited space, limited to only people we want to communicate to (spammers clearly are not). Telephone is also a limited space. The road is like Internet, both are public space, so ads are acceptable here and ethicalness depends on whether it is disturbing or not.
TV ads is only a bit intrusive as it takes “break” time, which otherwise would be empty (without commercial breaks, we’ll be getting non-commercial breaks, like the infamous color test screen used in the past). TV ads disturbs semi-personal space (TV). Thus, I rate it ethical. Personally, I actually like TV channels that have short “breaks” between their program more than the one that doesn’t. Some channels that have no breaks (like HBO) keeps me on the screen at all time, giving no time to go to the toilet or fetch some food (as I hate missing parts of the film I’m watching). But there is a fine line here, for the length of the breaks, some channel have a break that’s too long, or too much of a break.
Billboards are not intrusive, as we’d only look at a billboard when we want to (some billboards are interesting enough that we’d stop and see), and we don’t need to do anything if we don’t want to see it (as opposed as having to click an X). Billboard ads is also a public space ad. Thus I rate it ethical.
Website ads varies in intrusiveness. Text ads being the least intrusive and Flash ads being the most intrusive. Overall, they’re only a bit intrusive, as we could easily ignore the ads just by doing nothing (as opposed as having to click an X). Website ads is also located in semi-public area (as the website is a public area, accessed through my private computer). Thus it is ethical. I put adblock in my firefox not because I think this kind of ads is intrusive, but more because I’d ignore them anyway (I’m very insensitive to ads) and it hurts load time (especially flash ads).
Pop-up ads is very intrusive, as we have to click the X to close it, even if it closes itself we have to wait for it to close. It is a semi-personal space ad, as it pop ups in a window, which is our computer, which is our personal space, despite being a website-related which is a public space. Pop ups can be ethical if the popup have an important functionality to the site (as opposed as purely for advertising), for example a gaming website popups a new windows to play the games in, the popup is heavy on advertising but also contains the game we’re going to play, that is an ethical ads. Another example, another website suddenly popups a window without forewarning and turns out to be an ad and there is nothing else in there, that is an unethical ads as it only wastes my time to close it without giving me anything, the site hasn’t even started giving any use to me.
Mail ads is a little bit intrusive, as it is something that gets into our house, which is our personal space. It is also targeting personal space, as our house is a personal space, and our mailbox is a semi personal space that is shared only with people we want to communicate to (spammers clearly are not). Mail ads are thus unethical. However, there is still a chance. Mail ads can be acceptably ethical if it is packaged with functionalities we asked for, for example, in an electricity bill, there is an ad on the corner of the page.
To sum up:
House Computer [ personal space, ads are strictly not allowed, net send ads intrudes our computer ]
Mailbox E-Mail Box [ limited space, in a perfect world, only people we wish to communicate to should left anything here ]
The road Internet [ public space, ads are ethical or not depends on the approach ]
Firewalls tend to messup the functionality of software.