Just an FYI for anyone who needs it...

If you are getting a lot of popup Windows Messenger spam (grey popups that steal focus) on your desktop, it is easily stopped.

1) Open your Control Panel (Pro and XP) or Programs->Admin Tools.

2) Open Services.

3) Scroll to "Messenger" (Pro and XP) or open "Services" (Server, etc.)

4) Right click, choose properties, change "Automatic" to "Manual" or better yet, "Disabled". Also stop the service.

Done. No more fake university diplomas, hot sex, instant credit, reduced mortgage fees... blah blah blah.

Cheers

(Oops - Forgot to mention that this is in a new post because it's not really related to the other spam issues.)

That pissis me off so much.

Spam is killing the internet. I don't know about you but I make a living by the internet so these people are my worced enemies If I could I would rip there head off.

I wish spamers would understand that THEY ARE JUST ANOYING US TO HELL.

The thing that will stop it is people have got to STOP buying stuff from them. I don't care if its somthing hella cool that I just have to have I will not do buisness with a spammer.

Internet marketing Optin or not has got to end.

I just wish all E-Mail marketing people would die a painful bloody death by the hands of all the people there are annoying.

The only way I can see to stop it is to charge for E-Mail and that would finish the internet off. They need to stop. Hopefully one of them will read this tread and change there ways but because of the fact that there rejects of society they will probably find some excuse for what there are doing it.

Sigh...

The dreaded NETSEND command.  It was an excellent idea for intranets behind a firewall.  An admin could message all the users on a network if necessary.  Unfortunately, Microsoft saw fit to add it to XP, with the factory setting on enabled.  The command has been available since NT 2000, as well as the ...ahem...feature.  As long as you know the IP address (or even IP range) of the computer you are performing the NETSEND on, you can hit anyone from anywhere on the internet.  Spammers knew about it for a long time.  They were merely waiting for enough XP users to come on board so that they could get the largest possible audience.   

By the way, spammers are selling software that takes advantage of NETSEND that makes it easy for a virtual novice with computers to send out thousands of these spams.  All they have to do is punch in the message and hit send.  I've seen an example of it.  With its really slick graphical user interface, the software looks quite professional.  Oh, did I mention this was another Ralfsky app.  Next time you see another message box hawking a weight loss program, remember that that service announcement was made possible by top spammer Ralph Ralfsky and the marketing wizards at Microsoft.

i remember seein a lil cartoon where a spammer was sent to hell, and had to do sumfin with ALL the spam emails he had sent, it was quite funny :P

:S i think he had to eat it, or use it as toilet roll, or sumfin :S i cant remember but it had like stacks and STACKS of paper behind him in hell :P i found it very funny

(simple things amuse simple minds )

I dunno, BlueFrog, I was just about convinced to get my PhD the easy way!

1 - What I want to know is how to find the IP address of the person USING the netsend command...

Q. where do people get your email address from to send you spam...
A. mainly newsgroups, so use this to your advantage - my current newsgroup email address is actually commmision junction - Why? because I recently found out that they will pay people to spam you as long as they have an "opt out" link ... this in my opinion stinks, so I am letting them see what its like...

Q. How do I reduce the amount of spam I get?
A. http://www.spampal.org/ - http://www.spampal.org/  brilliant bit of software, it marks all spam that comes in (VERY accurate, probably 95%) and I can setup Outlook to automatically delete them...

HTH's

Gerry

Unfortunately spam is a part of life. Making it illegal is just a very bad bad idea.  [ the whole freedom of speech thing and all... ]  Finding ways to deal with it creates jobs anyways .  For those of us poor admins, it is a pain, but not really that tough. Dealing with the Messenger spam is pretty easy - just set your firewall to block that port before anything even gets into your network.

If anyone is wondering why spammers spam... it's because it works. People buy things from spam and they make money. The best thing to do is to buy whatever it is from someone else who doesn't spam.

If you're looking to find the IP addresses of people, try using something like the Ethereal Network Analyzer at http://www.ethereal.com/ - http://www.ethereal.com/  or check out http://winpcap.mirror.ethereal.com - http://winpcap.mirror.ethereal.com  for WinPcap. Check into the logs and you've got 'em. Personally, I use Ethereal. Works well for what I need.

If you're looking for vengeance, there are lots of ways to get it. I'll let the interested party(s) there do their own homework. Try googling "satanic voodoo rituals". Make sure to have a few extra live chickens handy.

Glad that little tid-bit helped a few people anyways. (There are people out there selling "software" to deal with the problem... hahaha... what a joke.)

Honestly I was thinking about finding the software that sends Messenger Spam so I could tell people how to stop from geting it.

I hate spam. Its costs the internet so much money in bandwith

I say charge for E-Mail.

That will stop it.

If a spamer had to pay it wouldnt be worth it for him.