How FBI DNS Changer Shutdown Might Break Your Internet and What To Do About It

FBI actions mean 350,000 computers – all infected with the “DNSchanger” malware – will be cut off from the Internet on July 9, 2012. Does this sound like science fiction at best or a scam at worst? Well, it’s neither. Keep reading to hear the crazy story behind the FBI and the DNSChanger trojan, and what you can do to make sure your Internet will keep working.

Once upon a time, a particularly nasty trojan, known as DNS Changer, began spreading around the Internet. This trojan didn’t just infect computers and spread itself: it changed the very way these computers connect to the Internet. This trojan forcibly changed the DNS settings on computers, re-directing certain domains to fraudulent sites.

Wait a Second…What Is DNS?

Good question. To answer this, I’ve got an unusual request to make of you. Open a new tab, and type these numbers where you’d usually type the address: “74.125.224.72″. Hit enter and you’ll see the Google homepage.

There’s no foul play here – 74.125.224.72 is one of Google’s many IP addresses. An IP address is a number assigned to a server; every website you visit has one. Every time you type a web address, like “Google.com”, and hit enter, a computer somewhere is translating that address into an IP address. These computers are called DNS servers, and they’re the reason the Internet works the way you expect it to.

Your Internet provider connects you with certain DNS servers by default. Some geeks like to use custom DNS servers, such as OpenDNS or Google DNS. There’s nothing wrong with using these services, and – depending on your Internet provider – they may even speed up your Internet connection.

Computer viruses can change these settings too, though obviously speeding up your Internet connection isn’t their priority.

What DNSchanger Did

DNSchanger, as its name implies, changed the DNS servers used by infected computers. It affects both Windows and Mac computers, and is even known to change the settings on routers (if the default administrator password is unchanged).

Why do criminals bother with this? The FBI explains:

“Criminals have learned that if they can control a user’s DNS servers, they can control what sites the user connects to on the Internet. By controlling DNS, a criminal can get an
unsuspecting user to connect to a fraudulent website or to interfere with that user’s online web browsing.”

Basically, criminals were using evil DNS servers to redirect people from the sites they want to fraudulent sites, all in the name of making a couple bucks.

But don’t panic. The FBI got involved, and ultimately shut down the evil DNS servers. One problem though was that every infected computer depended on the evil DNS servers to connect to the Internet, meaning that completely shutting down these servers would cut off the then millions of infected computers from the Internet.

Instead of doing that, the FBI hired contractors to run friendly DNS servers. This meant the evil DNS servers could be shut down without cutting people off from the Internet, but it also left the FBI paying to run a DNS server for millions of people. This isn’t cheap.

The number of people still infected has since gone down – the official estimate is around 350,000 people. Even so, the FBI cannot afford to run these friendly DNS servers forever – so they’re stopping on July 9, 2012. That is why those with the trojan will find their Internet no longer working in July.

Am I Infected?

Naturally, after reading that, you’re curious to find out whether or not you’re infected. The quickest way to see if your computer is infected with the DNS Changer trojan is to visit this site. If you see red, you’ve got the virus. If you see green, you’re (probably) okay.

There are more things you can do to check; the FBI can help with that. Follow the instructions provided there to figure out whether your DNS servers are good or evil.

How Can I Remove The Trojan?

Did you find out you’ve got a trojan? Don’t panic! This malware is relatively old, and we’ve outlined more than a few free anti-virus programs that can help.

If you don’t have anti-malware software, I recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. It also doesn’t hurt to have the free version of Malwarebytes around for the occasional scan. Run scans with both programs and you should be fine, so run the above test again.

If neither of these programs will update, you might consider trying the BitDefender Live CD. It runs from its own operating system, and can usually get around DNS issues in your operating system.

Conclusion

I’d like to thank the great community at MakeUseOf Answers for pointing this story out to me, and helping to gather relevant information. Do you want more information? Be sure to readthis official FBI release on the virus, which contains instructions for removing the DNS Changer virus and the history of it. If all else fails, that document can guide you through the removal process.

Of course, I also recommend checking out the comments below, because I’m sure the MakeUseOf community will pitch in with a few more tips.

References: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fbi-dns-changer-shutdown-break-internet/

How to Fix Windows 7 When It Fails to Boot

There's a fix for that!

Whether caused by a virus, a new operating system or by simple mistake, being faced with an "Operating System not found" or similar error during your computer system's boot up can be a nerve rattling experience. Assuming you have Microsoft's Window 7 installed however, do not fear, such a boot error can often be resolved in just a few simple steps.

First, check your BIOS and hardware

In many cases, having Windows 7 fail to boot may be as simple as having your BIOS set with an incorrect boot order sequence. It can be quite common if you have more than one hard drive installed in your computer and your BIOS gets reset. Usually you can access your BIOS seconds after your computer turns on by pressing the Delete button or by pressing a specific function key. Once in the BIOS, check to see that your system drive is listed appropriately in the boot order sequence; you may need to refer to your motherboard manual for help.

Another possible reason for Windows not being detected upon start up is a hardware issue. If your BIOS is unable to detect your system drive, check to make sure all the cables are plugged in properly. If your hard drive is making an odd noise, such as a clicking sound, your hard drive may be broken. Finally, it is possible that the hard drive is having data corruption issues, which has damaged important system data, such as the Master Boot Record (MBR). If you suspect a faulty hard drive, it may be a good idea to backup and scan your hard drive for errors from another computer and possibly consider buying a replacement. Trying to repair a boot problem on a damaged drive can possibly lead to even more data loss, so backup your data before attempting anything.

The MBR and other important boot data can also be damaged by trying to install an earlier version of Windows, such as Windows XP, alongside Windows 7 and by third-party programs, such as viruses. In the case of a virus, it is recommended that you run a virus scan of the drive before attempting any repairs as otherwise it could lead to more data loss. It is further possible to achieve the appearance of damaged boot data by having the wrong drive partition set to active, which can be the outcome of an overly curious Windows user with administrative permissions.

Fixing the MBR and other start up problems in Windows 7 is most quickly accomplished by using the Windows 7 Installation DVD. If you do not have a Windows 7 Installation DVD however, you can alternatively use a Windows 7 System Recovery Disc, which we will show you how to create further down in this article.  If you do not yet have either a Windows 7 Installation DVD or a recovery disc, do yourself a big favor and make a recovery disc right away to avoid any unnecessary headaches down the road.

Fixing the Master Boot Record (MBR)

Step one: Turn your computer on, booting from either your Windows 7 Installation DVD or Windows 7 System Recovery Disc.  Remember, you may need to change the boot order inside your BIOS to have the your DVD drive boot first.

Step two: After the installation or recovery disc loads, if prompted, select your language settings and then continue.  If you are using the installation DVD, when prompted by the following screen select Repair your computer.

Step three: The computer will take a moment now to scan itself for any Windows installations, after which you will likely be given a choice to select which installation you wish to repair.  Select the appropriate Windows installation from the list and then continue. If by chance a problem is detected in one of your Windows installations at this initial stage, the system may also ask you if it can try to repair the problem automatically. It is up to you if you wish to let the system try to repair itself, but otherwise just select No.

Step four: Once you have reached the System Recovery Options screen, as shown below, you will be faced with a list of choices that can aid you in repairing a damaged Windows 7 operating system.  If you wish to try the Startup Repair option first, it is often successful in automatically fixing many different start up issues, but in this article we will be using the Command Prompt option to resolve our problems manually. So, clickCommand Prompt to continue. 

Step five: Now sitting at the command prompt, enter the following command and then press enter:

         bootrec.exe /FixMbr

If successful, you should be greeted with the message The operation completed successfully.  That's it!  Your Master Boot Record has been repaired.

While the above command does fix the MBR, and sometimes that is enough, there still might be an error with the system partition's boot sector and Boot Configuration Data (BCD). This might occur if you have tried to install another operating system alongside Windows 7, such as Windows XP.  To write a new boot sector, try the following command:

        bootrec.exe /FixBoot

If you are still faced with your Windows 7 installation not being detected during start up, or if you wish to include more than one operating system choice to your system's boot list, you can try the following command to rebuild your BCD:
   
        bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd

The above command will scan all your disks for other operating systems compatible with Windows 7 and allow you to add them to your system's boot list. If this fails, you may need to backup the old BCD folder* and create a new one in its place with the following commands:

        bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

        c:

        cd boot

        attrib bcd -s -h -r

        ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

        bootrec /RebuildBcd

*Some users also find simply deleting the boot folder and retrying the above steps effective at resolving boot issues, but it is not recommended.

How to change active partitions

Upon purposely changing the active partition on my system drive, I was faced with a BOOTMGR is missingerror during my system's start up that prevent Windows from starting. It is a common mistake to make when playing with partitions on a system drive and it can be a headache to solve if not prepared. To change your active partition back using the Windows 7 recovery disc or Installation DVD, follow the steps below.

Step one: Follow steps one to four in the above guide. This should take you to the Command Prompt in the Windows Recovery Environment.

Step two: Type DiskPart and then press Enter.

Step three: Type List Disk now and then press Enter. This command will list all disks attached to your computer and assign them a disk number.

Step four: Type Select Disk x, where x is the number for the disk containing the partition you wish to make active. Press Enter.

Step five: Type List Partition and then press Enter. You will now be shown a list of the partitions on the selected disk. Determine which partition you wish to make active.

Step six: Type Select Partition x, where x is the number of the partition you wish to make active.

Step seven: Now, just type Active and then press Enter. That should be it - the selected partition is now active.

How to create a Windows 7 System Recovery Disc

Windows 7 makes it easy to create a System Recovery Disc if you already have Windows 7 installed and running.

Step one: Click Start > All Programs > Maintenance > Create a System Repair DiscStep two: Insert a blank CD or DVD into your disc drive.

Step three: Click Create disc and let the program do its thing.

That's it! It only needs to write about 140- to 160-megabytes to the disc, depending on whether your OS is 64-bit or 32-bit, and that should only take a minute. If you do not have a CD/DVD-R drive to create a recovery disc with, you can alternatively download the ISO image of the Windows 7 System Recovery Disc and use it to make a bootable USB flash drive.

How to create a Windows 7 System Recovery USB flash drive

Step one: If you do not have a DVD drive, download the appropriate Windows 7 Recovery Disc image from Here. You will need a torrent client for this step, such as µTorrent. Alternatively, if you have a DVD drive, you can use an existing Windows 7 Installation DVD or a Windows 7 Recovery Disc when at step seven.

Using a Windows 7 Installation DVD at step seven will also allow you to install Windows 7 via USB, not just recover a damaged system; very useful if you have a netbook!

Step two: Open a command prompt with administrative rights. To do this, click Start > All Programs > Accessories and then right click Command Prompt, followed by clicking Run as administrator.

Step three: After accepting any UAC verification questions, you should now be at the command prompt. Make sure your USB flash drive is plugged in and then type DiskPart, followed by pressing Enter.

Step four: Type List Disk and then press Enter. Determine which disk number corresponds to your USB flash drive. In the following scenario, Disk 1 corresponds to our USB drive since we know our USB drive has a capacity of 2-gigabytes.

Step five: Enter the following commands in order, changing the disk number to the disk number listed for your USB drive.  Warning - the following commands will erase everything on your USB drive or the disk you select.

        Select Disk 1

        Clean

        Create Partition Primary

        Select Partition 1

        Active

        Format FS=NTFS 

Step six: After DiskPart successfully formats the USB drive, which might take a few minutes, you will want to enter the following commands:

        Assign
        Exit

Step seven: You will now need to copy the contents of the ISO image you downloaded, or the contents of a DVD you wish use, to the USB flash drive.  There should be two folders and a file in the ISO image that need to be copied. To extract the files contained within an ISO image, you will need to use a program such as WinRAR. You can download WinRAR from here.

Step eight: Now that the files are copied, we will want to make the USB drive bootable. To accomplish this however we will need to download a small file called bootsect.exe; it can be downloaded from here or here. The file can also be found in the boot directory of the Windows 7 Installation DVD.  Once downloaded, place the bootsect.exe file in the root directory of your USB flash drive.

Step nine: Back at the command prompt, we will want to change the current directory to that of the USB drive and run the bootsect command. In our case this is drive E, so we will be using the following respective commands:

          e:
          bootsect /nt60 e:

The bootsect command will update the target volume with a compatible bootcode. If all goes well, you should now have a bootable USB recovery drive; just remember to add the USB drive to the boot list in your system's BIOS for it to work upon start up.

References: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/win7-windows-7-mbr,10036.html

How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems

If you’re having boot problems on your Windows PC, it’s often helpful to repair the MBR (Master Boot Record) to restore the Windows 7 boot loader—and you can do it easily from the Windows installation disc.

This is generally most useful if you’ve broken something and there’s a boot loader error, or if you have made the mistake of installing an older version of Windows on the same PC that already has Windows 7 which wipes out the boot loader.

Note: If your PC starts booting into Windows but fails, you should probably try using Safe Mode instead.

Boot From the Windows Install Disc

The first thing you’ll need to do is boot off the install disc, and then click through until you see the “Repair your computer” link in the lower left-hand corner.

You’ll need to choose the correct installation of Windows and then click the Next button.

And then you’ll get to the System Recovery Options screen, where you can get to the Command Prompt.

Repairing the Master Boot Record

If you want to restore the master boot record, you can simply type in the following command:

bootrec /fixmbr

You can also write a new boot sector onto the system partition with this command (which is often more useful):

bootrec /fixboot

And of course, if you just use bootrec /? you’ll be able to see all the options.

This is the same way that we fixed the “BOOTMGR is missing” error when trying to boot up Windows 7 or Vista.

Replacing the Windows XP Bootloader with Windows 7

If you’ve managed to install XP on the same PC that you already had Windows 7 on, you’ll noticed that you can’t boot into Windows 7 anymore. You can use this command to fix that and restore the Windows 7 bootloader:

bootsect /nt60 all

Depending on the partition that you’ve installed, you might need to substitute the drive letter instead of “all”.

Note: if you want to restore Windows XP back to the menu, you can open up a command prompt in Windows 7 and run this command:

bcdedit /create {ntldr} -d “Windows XP”

Using the Automated Startup Repair

Of course, all this command-line stuff is probably not necessary in most cases. You can usually just use the Startup Repair option from the Recovery menu…

It’ll check for problems and probably fix them. If not, then you can always use the command prompt.

Have you ever needed to restore your boot loader to get Windows working again?

References: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32523/how-to-manually-repair-windows-7-boot-loader-problems/

不用代理，直接观看中国大陆优酷土豆网络视频

上次我写到利用 Sina App Engine 翻墙回国内看优酷土豆等网络视频，其实就是利用新浪的云计算平台搭建了一个代理，国外跳转为中国 IP 地址从而绕过优酷、土豆等视频网站的限制。这个方法虽然稳定免费，实施起来却有些麻烦。今天介绍一个方法，不需要翻墙代理，非大陆地区就可以直接观看优酷和土豆视频。

使用方法

1. 使用 Google Chrome 浏览器。

2. 到 Chrome Store 安装 Unblock-Youku 扩展 https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pdnfnkhpgegpcingjbfihlkjeighnddk

（插件已发布到官方应用商店，直接通过上面的链接安装或更新，以下步骤皆可忽略了。）

2. 下载这个扩展：http://rrurl.cn/s7ZtkC

3. 把刚才下载的 CRX 文件拖拽到 Google Chrome 浏览器

4. 之后选择 Continue “继续”，安装浏览器扩展程序

5. 打开优酷或者土豆，之前「仅限大陆播放」的视频也可以看了。

6. 如果你安装不成功，请检查：a. 你用的是原版的 Chrome；b. 你的 Chrome 已经升级到了最新版本；c. 实在不行重装一下 Chrome；4. 找一个 geek 来帮你根据以下的原理设置一下。

7. 不能保证此法适用于其他视频网站，若无效，仍推荐本文开头的新浪 SAE 设置代理的方法，一定有效。

原理

在浏览器发出的 HTTP 头文件添加一个 X-Forwarded-For 字段，内容是任意的国内 IP 即可。源于 youku 和 tudou 使用 HTTP header 来判断观众地区，这是不严密的。类似的错误还出现在 乐视 letv 以及 虾米 xiami 等网站。修改 X-Forwarded-For 曾广泛应用在网络投票里伪造 IP 进行刷票。

项目开源，托管在GitHub，欢迎 Fork。https://github.com/whuhacker/Unblock-Youku 

References: http://www.lovelucy.info/watch-youku-tudou-without-proxy.html

《满江黄 之 Bersih 3.0》 ~ 献给Bersih3.0的一首诗

《满江黄 之 Bersih 3.0》
作者：磊钟

大马人民爱国心，国阵水炮浇不熄；
明知子弹不留情，十万勇夫上街去。

手无寸铁黄衫军，铁腕暴政使心机；
反贪反污反稀土，不分种族一条心。

华人印度马来人，身穿黄衣舞国旗；
黄人绿人愤怒鸟，高唱国歌泪盈眶。

大马警察皆是人，上头命令难以拒；
腐败制度蚀人心，妈妈献花显爱心。

国际妇女勇气奖，安美嘉为大马荣；
维护人权捍正义，面对强权不畏惧。

选民册上皆幽魂，死人亦可投国阵；
大马选举多舞弊，要求改革如登天。

内安法令被修订，换汤不换药材底；
印刷法令依旧在，媒体自由无音讯。

冠英平反马来女，换得十八月牢狱；
安华反对马哈迪，被陷肛交又叫鸡。

再穷不能穷教育，学贷利息还不清；
学生和平宿广场，流氓枪手施暴力。

养牛两亿五千万，胸罩一件两万几；
钻石钻石亮晶晶，七千多万很便宜。

大马本是产油国，油价不跌反而起；
百货高涨样样起，唯有薪水没有起。

国家并非穷到尽，全被贪官吃完去；
反贪越反就越贪，明福含冤被自杀。

纳吉唯恐国阵亡，法国高庭等着他；
蒙古女郎很寂寞，九泉之下盼相聚。

月凤出卖霹雳州，糩璊怒骂为拖车；
为己金钱和利益，卖华汉奸扑街去。

小弟出生自华教，年年筹款为母校；
陆游屈原文天祥，爱国情操动我心。

大马政治悲歌曲，五十五年唱不尽；
小弟只身异乡里，写首诗歌献人民。

不及岳飞满江红，但皆小弟肺腑语；
改朝换代势必行，支持民主抗到底。

Written By Ray Chong

不能参加Bersih的朋友请分享/SHARE此文章来为站在前线的兄弟姐妹们打气！

References:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=302844963123310
https://www.facebook.com/MyNameIsRayChong