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Geek Culture / Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

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Rye
21
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Joined: 30th May 2003
Location: United Kingdom, Blackrod
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 03:17
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I went on the net today and after 2 mins of being connected a window pops up saying RPC service shut down unexpectidly and it has a 1 min timer on it. It says the system has to be shut down and that i must save any work otherwise it will be lost. when the timer reaches 0 my computer restarts.

Does anyone know what is causing this. Is it a virus?? i have run a virus checker and it didnt find anything, although the software is 2001 and hasnt been updated. is this an error in windows, i think i can rule this out as it also occurs on my brothers computer. the only computer that is not affected is this one (my dads) which has Windows ME, which i disconnected from the network just in case before i turned it on.

So does anyone know/have an idea what this is?? anyone ever had this problem themselves.
He who keeps his work in disorder gives home to chaos. Let him be struck with stone and iron to forge away his flaws
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Fallout
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Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 03:33 Edited at: 12th Aug 2003 03:35
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rofl. Join the club. It's a port hacker, I think. Either a remote system or an individual. Same thing happened to me. You need to run:
-services.msc in your run option on the start bar.
-Select the RPC services option.
-click the recovery tab.
-Change the three options from reboot to do nothing.
-Download all the XP security packs from microsoft.
-Put the RPC settings back to reboot.

EDIT: And getting yourself a firewall proggy might help in future too.

Insiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!
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Rye
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Location: United Kingdom, Blackrod
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 04:00
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Thanks mate im gonna do all that, unless downloads are too big for 56k modem, in which case i may have to just do a fresh install of windows, needs doing anyway, but the firewall sounds good, know any free ones??

He who keeps his work in disorder gives home to chaos. Let him be struck with stone and iron to forge away his flaws
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8truths
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Joined: 10th May 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 11:31
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The specific worm is called MSBlaster, and is a Distributed DOS attack. Update your AV. Check your services running. And firewall!

So far, it appears it only screws up a few processes at shutdown. The AV companies are calling it low on damage, but high on slow general web traffic.

Apparently, it is meant to attack MS (seems to be Windows Update website according to the newsies), and be really mean about how Bill Gates is a money whore who still hasn't fixed this problem.

This afternoon I had several hundred attempts to pop this on my machine (large cable ISP). Finally went to a blanket deny, because I got sick of responding to it.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Benjamin
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Joined: 24th Nov 2002
Location: France
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 11:57
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http://microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-026.asp

Theres the patch but my pc wont stay on long enough for me to download the thing!

You didn’t kick them, you just pushed them with your foot at a very high velocity!
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Fallout
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 13:18
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To get your PC to stay on long enough, do the step I mentioned in my first post. I have a 56K modem too. The RPC can still be shutdown without having to shutdown your computer if you change the settings.

Woah, MSBlaster? Yep, my firewall threw up the fact MSBlaster was trying to contact the internet. The problem is you dont really get anymore info than that, so you have to decide based on the name whether it's something naughty, or something good. Seeing as it was called MSBlaster, I think I assumed it was sound blaster drivers or something doing an auto-scan for updates.

It's all very well having a firewall, but these days half the programs you have on your harddisk try and contact the internet to do this and that. It's constantly a battle to block things and not block things based purely on the name and the suggested risk.

Btw, this MS Blaster thing? It's all blocked and under control now, but what do I need to do to get rid of it?

As for you Ryan, I don't know of any free firewalls unless you have a friend who has one. There probably are some online though. Once you stop your PC from rebooting, and download the patch, you can search for one on google or whatever.

Btw, the main patch you need is this one:
[href]www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-026.asp[/href]

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Fallout
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 13:43
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Btw, there's a short article on it here:
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=43865
Looks like it was released yesterday.

If I'm reading the article correct, once you've patched the whole with the patch and blocked everything with your firewall, deleting the MSBlast.exe file should be enough, I hope.

Insiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!
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Dave J
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 14:37 Edited at: 12th Aug 2003 14:40
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It's an exploit in Windows, get the patch ASAP.

Oh, and the problem is really with Windows and not the worm, the flaw has always been there it's just that no one's heavily exploited it until the worm was created.

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
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Wiggett
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Location: Australia
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 16:49 Edited at: 12th Aug 2003 16:50
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hackers are cool untill they spread they viruses that jus tpoop on normal computer users, why dont they do something productive and sneak into m$'s headquarters and find a way to get bill gates into trouble with the law an dmake him claim bankruptcy with microsoft so that things will become free* again.(* not in the money sense)
i jsut deleted the blast file myself. had me shittin my pant sthining m$ had shut me down for installing of a copied xp cd.

good old captain crunch and his cereal whistle.


http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/unpotkf
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Benjamin
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Location: France
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 17:45
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Thats really funny, all you needed to do was get the patch I linked you all to. Ive got it, and im fine.
When this thingy happens the pc doesnt always get shut down when you connect so you can get the patch then.

You didn’t kick them, you just pushed them with your foot at a very high velocity!
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Cash Curtis III
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Location: Toronto, Canada
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 17:53
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thats weird. Also im installing XP maybe later on today, anything i should know?
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the_winch
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Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 18:39
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Scroll up to xxxpetratxxx post with the link in. Get the patch, install it then go online and head straight for windows update.
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Fallout
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 18:43
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Apart from it being a pile of rotten turds?

Oh yeah, all your ancient software designed to run in DOS won't work.
Most of your software designed to run in Windows 95 won't work*
Some of your software designed to run in Windows 98 won't work*

*There are compatibility options to make older software run in XP, but in my experience this usually doesnt work. Games especially, generally dont work in XP if they were designed for 95. If they do run on XP, and you're hardware only just fast enough to run them on '98 then they'll run like a bag of dead turtles on XP.

Ok, obviously XP has its good points, but most of them are "behind the scenes" so you dont appreciate them and the bad points are always more glaringly obvious.

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8truths
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Location: United States
Posted: 12th Aug 2003 20:43
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MS should have done like Apple did with OSX -- just bundled an older OS with XP so you run your old stuff.

So, did you get your patch (computer, not pirate)? Did it work?

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Rye
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 22:48
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just gettin the patch now, still want a "free" firewall from somewhere tho. thanx for all the help people.

He who keeps his work in disorder gives home to chaos. Let him be struck with stone and iron to forge away his flaws
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8truths
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 23:19
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Tiny Personal Firewall. There is a free release of it. It's hard to find (because they want to make money), but it is out there. If you absolutely cannot find it on your own, I think I still have a copy of the installer.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Cash Curtis III
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 23:37
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bag of dead turtles?!!? Now i am definatly not installing XP!!!
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Rye
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 23:47
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got a free one

its quite good.. i think (never used one so i cant really say)

i found when searching a program that completely removes the virus here is where it is

http://www.webattack.com/get/fixblast.shtml

its only 160kb and works perfectly

He who keeps his work in disorder gives home to chaos. Let him be struck with stone and iron to forge away his flaws
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Shock
AGK Developer
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 00:30
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i use zone alarm, i don't know how good it is or anything, but there's a free version and iv'e heard good things about it.

http://www.zonelabs.com

Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken.
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the_winch
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Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 13th Aug 2003 00:52
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Quote: "bag of dead turtles?!!? Now i am definatly not installing XP!!!"


If win98 is stable with your hardware and programs then using windows xp is a bit pointless it is slower uses more ram and needs a stupid ammount of disk space. Xp also has a few annoyances the worst of which is that everything appears to take 2 more mouse clicks than older versions.
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Shock
AGK Developer
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 01:00
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Actually, WinXP is *FASTER* than other versions of windoze, all versions of NT are faster than their 9x counterparts.

You may be able to squeze an extra frame or two per second in DBP with WinXP too.

Still, it takes more memory and the GUI is slower due to the "new look". And the disk space, dude, it eats it up like you have one of those *unlimited hard drives* i wish i had one of those...

Annoyances: Iv'e never seen a more annoying OS. Annoying Windows Update popups now and again etc. Still, once youve managed to turn all the annoyances off (which takes awhile, trust me), then it runs fine and it'll make you happy.

Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken.
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andrew11
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 01:21
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I just had a popup from my AV telling me that that virus was going around. Not that I had it, just that its there. Am I at risk on Windows ME, or is it just XP? I really don't feel like updating and running my AV, because it takes forever...

"All programmers are playwrites and all computers are lousy actors" -Anon
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andrew11
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 02:02
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Never mind...

I just read on Microsoft that it dosen't affect ME.

"All programmers are playwrites and all computers are lousy actors" -Anon
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the_winch
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 02:08
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Quote: "Actually, WinXP is *FASTER* than other versions of windoze, all versions of NT are faster than their 9x counterparts."


Not on my harware it isn't. 98 is easerly faster then xp. Unfortuntly it crashes a lot more.

Quote: "I just had a popup from my AV telling me that that virus was going around. Not that I had it, just that its there. Am I at risk on Windows ME, or is it just XP? I really don't feel like updating and running my AV, because it takes forever..."


xxxpetratxxx posted a link to the patch at the top of the thread.
Your sig image is the most annoying I have seen. Does it really need to flash?
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andrew11
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 02:15
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"xxxpetratxxx posted a link to the patch at the top of the thread."
Yes, I know. I asked if it applied to Windows ME, but I went to Microsofts site and said it didn't.

"Your sig image is the most annoying I have seen. Does it really need to flash?"

I know. Yes.

I'll take it off if it really bothers people.

"All programmers are playwrites and all computers are lousy actors" -Anon
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8truths
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 02:55
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Me is safe, as the RPC does not run on it. The alert is for 2000, XP, and Sever 2003 systems.

. . .

Xp is faster in some ways. The most noteworthy is the file system. NTFS is faster than FAT32.

XP and 2000 get slowed down by the ridiculous number of worthless services added (including the remote procedure call and messenger service, common ways for hackers to gain access, and with no really good purpose).

I have been able to get 2000 down to 29 Mb RAM before it just won't do business. Still, Win 98 first release runs on 16 Mb, and SE goes on 24 Mb.

Probably the biggest difference between XP and 98 is System Restore --a handy tool for the tragically disaster prone.

I dual boot 2000 and 98, with the ethernet drivers only installed on 2000 (thus preventing 98 from unwittingly picking up any baddies).

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Fallout
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 03:25
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I think XP/NT vs 98 vary speed wise, depending on application, and demands, like multi-tasking. All I know is, for most games, 98 runs a fair bit quicker, from my own tests on my old P700.

Insiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!
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Shock
AGK Developer
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 23:17
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The Win XP OS overall is alot faster than 98, but worthless components/services and a useless *new look* slow it down again, taking those off would give you a pretty fast OS (by microsoft's standards, lol )

And i managed to get Win2k Server to run on an old "real sever" (quadrouple raid 3gb hdd's, server casing, server mboard etc). It had 24mb ram (8 built onto the mboard, 16 in simms lol), and a 100mhz cpu lol. Although it generally took about 10 mins to boot (no kidding), and about 40 seconds to open My Computer.

Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken.
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 23:30
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Those of you wanting a good free firewall - try ZONEALARM. I use black ice myself (full pay version) but I have heard great things about ZA. Also if you have a home network you may want to use a Router that does NAT Translation - Your machines will be "invisible" on the internet. I have a Linksys 4 port and it's great.

peace,
Rustler

How do ya do there son
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