Screenconnect, Connectwise, Logmein Rescue, Teamviewer11, ShowMyPC, Microsoft Registartion Files

peterbaker

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

You're wrong.

Says the admitted all in all pretty bleedin' nerdy person. (DON'T take that as an insult because I value nerds more than most. The world needs nerds because their brains can be extremely lateral and assist in marvellous ways with technological progress).

There is a downside to being nerdy however when discussing risk on this kind of topic. Nerds habitually do not fully appreciate how others minds think. Clearly you do not understand how mine works even though I am borderline nerdy.

I'm another that is fully conversant with remote access software like TeamViewer, I work in software security over the full product lifecycle and am all in all pretty bleedin' nerdy. Many of my friends are not. My parents are not, they are in their 80s and have no idea about computers other than a bit of surfing, email and Word. I know very well how their mind works from the number of times I've had to talk them through fixing problems on their computers.

Yes, and that is why you take over because their minds are not like yours.

The main thing I've impressed on them is not to install anything on their computer. Wait for me or my brother to visit and one of us will install anything they need. That keeps them safe from all the scammers out there, despite the fact they have teamviewer on their computer,

All good, and well done for protecting those who mean most to you.

AndyPix suggested I was not a good friend because I had not educated the elderly lady sufficiently in the way you have educated your family. She lost over £8,000 (until I helped her get it back via her bank and slammed Connectwise for their sloppy security such that they also woke up a bit and finally did as I insisted and immediately quarantined the user account involved).

In a thread that was deleted, I had revealed that his lady was not my family and my connection was only as a friend of her neighbour who happened to be on holiday. I was the stand-in emergency call point. But because I also have seen how ordinary and even extra-ordinary minds do make mistakes despite specific "education" I KNOW that education is only a small part of what is needed to keep ordinary people safe.

... because I put it there so I could help them without a two hour each way drive.

Are you sure that as your parents get older that it is sensible to have TeamViewer ready installed for the day they get a call and temporarily forget? Your warning voice that used to sit constantly on their shoulder shouting in their other ear when the phone rings? "What was it that our child told us?" ...

"Never mind this caller sounds kind and very knowledgeable and is from Microsoft and they use TeamViewer too ... must be safe if they know we've got it, same as our usual tech support person ... What was his name again? Oh our son yes, we sometimes see them but they have their own life and live some distance away ... sorry yes ... you have children too? ... Oh sorry you also have older parents? ... yes, don't we all ... well mine are gone, but ...

... now what was it you wanted us to do? Click on the Teamviewer icon and just read off the ID and password ... sure, our normal person sometimes does that when the connection drops ..."

I mean no disrespect to your parents, and some lucky ones stay sharp to the end in their nineties and even beyond, but one in three of us is expected to suffer dementia or Alzheimers or similar before we die, and often far too early in life, and a good number of them will not have sufficient awareness to even begin to understand what the affliction does mean and will eventually mean to them. If they are online, and if still use eBanking, they are extremely vulnerable irrespective of well intentioned "education" by friends, family, or anyone else. Even highly educated human brains do illogical things. That's why we need warning systems built into the most complex machines.

You won't find any commercial pilot (who generally would not fit the "stupid" tag which RumRat loves waving or the "idiots" tag AndyPix is still using in the post above this) complaining about a machine that says in a loud and urgent voice when said pilot may not be expecting it "PULL UP! PULL UP! PULL UP!"

almillar

You can be scammed via email. Email is dangerous and should contain warnings.
You can be scammed via phone. Every mobile and home phone, and every bill you receive, should receive a warning.
Every computer you buy should contain a warning about remote desktop software.


You've said nothing new in your wordy responses, and I've spent enough time trying to explain to you the problem with your idea. If you realise how easy it is to format/repartition/delete a drive, for example, or simply delete necessary files, you'll realise that a computer user DOES need to have some knowledge, and you can't hide them behind 'vulnerability' and expect everyone else to be able to help.

peterbaker

AndyPix wrote: »

How very wrong you are - and i struggle to see where you have come up with that assumption

I apologise AndyPix, but it is your view of the world which leads me to that conclusion. You do not see the world through ordinary glasses and therefore your view of how the public thinks and should think is coloured. That is perhaps a better way of putting it, I'm sorry. Clearly I have got you very hot under the collar these past few weeks, but I cannot let your original very narrow advice pervade on this subject.

This is because various fixes are multifaceted, and require a restart after each step (editing certain parts of registry for one example) , and the user has often gone to make a brew etc while you are working so asking them each time to perform a reboot just adds labour.
Also, a lot of the time, you may be fixing a machine at a remote location - where no user is present atall eg computers monitoring weather stations for one example.

You didn't compare and contrast with the scammer's ability to exploit this feature - please explain what might they be doing with it?

See above reasons , Plus the reason that you may be using teamviewer to control your own machine at home - as I and lots of other people regularly do - or vice versa, if i am working from home then no one is at my work PC by definition - but i still want to control it, and the other servers i may be working on

Same - you only answered half the question. To a scammer who knows how to exploit the same feature (just as you exploit it) what are the downsides to mere TeamViewer remote users?

I use this quite a lot - because some jobs take time, and the user may forget you are working in the background, especially if they dont see the mouse moving etc - but any input from their mouse or keyboard will hamper what you are trying to do, so it is useful to be able to temporarily disable this ..

THANK THE LORD - we are getting somewhere :rotfl: Now please answer the same question with your pretend scammer hat on

Also you always get the users that try to "help" you by moving the mouse to where they think you want it to be - again this is annoying and detracts from the purpose of you being connected in the first place ie to fix their machine

And if you are only pretending to fix the machine and are busy hacking it? What good is this feature then to the remote user?

AndyPix wrote:

me wrote:

What is the purpose of the scammer/tech support person being allowed to reconnect ooutomatically and seamessly to the remote computer even after the connection has dropped and the TeamViewer remote computer password has been changed and even when the (victim's/support needy user's) remote computer has changed its VPN location?

Its plain by your language that you dont quite understand all this - but i still applaud your motive - just your execution is very bad ..

I have said that I do not profess to understand everything to the nth degree but yes, I do have a little knowledge about a hell of a lot of diverse subjects, and thus far (and until society breaks down further and someone decides I need shooting!) it is not dangerous to me. What I post does tend to be more frustrating (I trust it causes no actual danger) to others who do not agree with my premise when I spot something that I believe requires urgent fixing in the public good.

I don't know if the phrase VPN location is the one that made you highlight my lack of knowledge this time, but if it helps, when I used it, I was thinking that is not very technical, but it might mean something to those who realise that VPN's can be used to hide your location (hide your IP), not just to make a connection more secure. Or maybe it was my talk of dropping a TeamViewer connection and of a Teamviewer user's password change and of a change of IP at the remote user's end making no difference to the ability of TeamViewer to maintain the connection just the same as if I was on a simple website, changed my IP using VPN in the middle of browsing and then continued.

MSE will make me login again if I do that half way through typing this response, but is TeamViewer not fussy about VPN changes? My eBanking program would certainly not maintain the connection, and even some of my email providers servers complain if I start using a VPN! I have only installed TeamViewer once but in the process of trying to install their flakey PnP monitor driver so I might see the black screen feature in action, it caused the PC to freeze and I had to hard boot and all manner of incovenience, but in the process my TeamViewer password changed a couple of times and the last time I noticed that the session I had live on my iPhone picked up and continued as if there was no password change! Seriously, PnP Monitor driver excepted, TeamViewer looks good on the outside, but what other flakiness is going on under the bonnet that compromises security?

...That would deviate from one of the main uses of teamviewer - to facilitate unattended access...
Some are set up for unattended access - others are not - It is a higly configurable and invaluable tool

Invaluable to tech support persons like you, AndyPix, and ... who else are we worried about ... remind us please

Sometimes you may be entering network paths, admin folder locations, certain commands that you dont want the user to have knowledge of - as is in your case, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and its best some users arent privvy to this.

Thank you ... please keep digging ... marvellous education job you may be doing here - really, I believe you have now engaged in a way that broadly is doing MSE readers a great service so they can make up their own minds more easily :T

NO NO NO


NO IT CANT - JESUS !! this is the whole crux of the arguement . It can categorically NOT just "end up on there" - the user has to install it themselves

You mean one tiny "OK to that and it's gameover" I think?

Indeed, with TeamViewer, I see you may be right if the scammer at the other end is a keyboard wizz and knows TeamViewer shortcuts like a slick MSE poster knows Ctrl A B I U F Z X C V etc! :eek:

It is powerful software - no doubt - but by the time this is installed for nefarious purposes - the victim has already been scammed ...

Please tell us how far you could get in the time taken to install the software if you were a scammer. Clearly you have the knowledge. Could you talk the talk as well as walk the walk? The problem AndyPix is that it is the talk which distracts, not the walk.

Please please say you understand now .. I have answered all your questions thouroughly and succinctly

I thank you for your answers, but would seriously appreciate answers to the second parts of most of them. I honestly believe it would help educate MSE readers today. I am not saying education isn't needed and I can easily agree education can compliment other protections, I'm just saying that with these powerful softwares, which are missing real-time PULL UP! PULL UP! PULL UP! warnings, those very needed warnings and even some automated resolving actions (e.g. instant firewall block against TeamViewer until a very considered route to opening it up again has been followed) are more important.

RumRat

Actually, you will find 'stupid' commercial pilots.
Yes, there are circumstances where pilots would ignore the 'Pull Up' warning. Obviously they need the knowledge for when to ignore it. Just as a computer user needs the knowledge of when to use something and when not to.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people using computers who shouldn't be, It's their own responsibility to ensure their safety online. If they are going to be scammed by a phone call or an email, all the warnings in the world are not going to protect them. By the time they've engaged with the caller and already accepted them as genuine, it's far too late to save them.
If education hasn't worked they are doomed, which is why scammers are still fleecing some people 25+ years into the internet, even though warnings are all over the press the internet and social media.

It may be time to let this thread die.......It's not really going anywhere.....

peterbaker

RumRat wrote: »

Actually, you will find 'stupid' commercial pilots.
Yes, there are circumstances where pilots would ignore the 'Pull Up' warning. Obviously they need the knowledge for when to ignore it. Just as a computer user needs the knowledge of when to use something and when not to.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people using computers who shouldn't be, It's their own responsibility to ensure their safety online. If they are going to be scammed by a phone call or an email, all the warnings in the world are not going to protect them. By the time they've engaged with the caller and already accepted them as genuine, it's far too late to save them.
If education hasn't worked they are doomed, which is why scammers are still fleecing some people 25+ years into the internet, even though warnings are all over the press the internet and social media.

It may be time to let this thread die.......It's not really going anywhere.....

I don't think we'll be going anywhere with you at the controls RumRat, then never mind the thread, if we let you run things at the pointy end, we might soon all die! :rotfl:

But actually, thanks to AndyPix's honest attempt to engage with the real questions about these softwares, the thread DOES actually look like it is getting somewhere.

rmg1

But you, peterbaker, still haven't grasped the obvious concept.
If you don't install the software at the request of a random caller, there's no need to worry.

No software = no computer scam

If I phoned you at random and asked you to go to a random website, would you do it? No, you wouldn't.
Why? Because I'm a random caller.

You still haven't answered my question on whether MS Excel (a perfectly useful piece of software used by millions of people) needs a warning. (see post 89).

This thread is going round in circles with you obviously not listening and spending God-knows how much time writing lengthy posts which, I agree with the others, are complete drivel.
I think we all get that you want to protect people.

I'm old enough to know better, and anyone I know with a computer has had me shouting very loudly in their ears since they got it (or I've known them, whichever is relevant) that calls about computer viruses, computers running slow, etc. are scams.

If they now get scammed, who's fault is it?
Quite simply, it's their own. Where did the idea of self-accountability go?
Presumably the way of common sense (which suddenly became health and safety).

By the way, I use DameWare Mini Remote Control at work for remotely accessing PCs when I need to.

So, two questions:-
Does MS Excel needs the same sort of warning that you're suggesting?
Does DameWare needs the same sort of warning that you're suggesting?

peterbaker

Sometimes it is a bit like arguing with children, but here you go, if it keeps you happy:

Most of the people who are likely to get scammed haven't the first idea what they would ever use Excel for and would probably not buy it. However, if by some chance they ended up with it alongside MSWord as part of an MSOffice installation or a "friend" had installed some more recent version of it, then if they actually did open an Excel file from an email or on the internet, yes they'd get some warnings especially if it contained code in the form of Macros/VBA scripts. If those warnings were ignored, who knows what the scripts might load and how fast it might lead to losing £8,000 from a bank account. Methinks that loading remote control softwares might lead faster to losing £8,000.

As for the extra remote control software you have introduced, I am afraid I have not the time to look at it. As you might imagine, I am already in trouble at my end for having spent so much time constantly bringing this thread back to the question of the real risks! But someone has to do it in this crazy world where anything goes, and crazies keep arguing that stable doors need leaving open to let the grooms in! What was that I saw about a dead horse? :rotfl:

AndyPix

Look - i have explained in great detail all the answers to your questions.
Now you are asking me what it is possible for scammers to do with this software ..


The answer to that is EVERYTHING .. Once it is installed and set up for unattended access they may as well be sat at your computer in your house.


YES - We have established that this, and other remote software can be used to great harm.


BUT .. what you are not getting is that pretty much EVERYTHING can be used to great harm in the clever hands of the scammers.


I have given you one example - the 419 scam that begins with receiving an email from a "nigerian prince"
Many many people have lots absolute fortunes to this one


So here is a direct question for you - please answer it


Do you think that all email programs should start with a warning that you might get scammed by using them ?

Here is another direct question - please answer it


Another type of fraud , called advanced fee fraud, is prevelent on Ebay.
Do you think that , when starting ebay, there should be a "pull up, pull up" warning there ?

Here is another direct question - please answer it


Many nefarious websites implement what is called a "drive by attack" using various methods to run a java applet on your computer that in turn , downloads ransomware onto your computer ..


Do you think there should be a warning every time you open internet explorer that using this software could harm your computer ?

Another direct question - please answer it
Special macros can be created in microsoft word, that when opening a word document, will go away and download ransomware to your computer - these ransomwares are pretty undetectable to antivirus systems as they exhibit no virus like behaviour but ruin lives and cost millions to the public.
Do you think that microsoft word should start with a massive warning about this ?



Now my answwers to the above questions would be " no, of course not" - its just crazy - the same as the answer to the question as to wether antivirus should flag up a remote tool.
Because the tools themselves are just tools - it is the way in which they are used which causes harm.


Back to the hammer analogy ?!


Please answer the questions above instead of ignoring them and writing loads more waffle
Whilst you are typing your answers it may click what everyone is getting at .. Hope so .


Oh, and please stop saying that i am calling victims idiots - that only happened in your mind

rmg1

peterbaker wrote: »

Snip

Most of the people who are likely to get scammed haven't the first idea what they would ever use Excel for and would probably not buy it. However, if by some chance they ended up with it alongside MSWord as part of an MSOffice installation or a "friend" had installed some more recent version of it, then if they actually did open an Excel file from an email or on the internet, yes they'd get some warnings especially if it contained code in the form of Macros/VBA scripts. If those warnings were ignored, who knows what the scripts might load and how fast it might lead to losing £8,000 from a bank account. Methinks that loading remote control softwares might lead faster to losing £8,000.
snip:

Using the remote control software my be quicker, but I can probably clear the bank account and do it long after I've sent you the spreadsheet so there's no obvious link.

But in my analogy you could lose a lot more.
In the worst case scenario I can think of (others may disagree) I can perform identity theft and leave you a lot worse off than -£8000 depending on the files I find during my "sweep".

If I really pushed the boat out (using my analogy), I could get you to phone me to find out why the spreadsheet isn't working and how to make it work!

No fancy software, no phone bill (for me anyway) and about 10 minutes of my time to walk you through how to enable macros.

There have been quite a few "oddities" (I won't call them viruses as I'm not sure they were) distributed via Excel in this manner (I'll let you Google it!).

RumRat

peterbaker wrote: »

I don't think we'll be going anywhere with you at the controls RumRat, then never mind the thread, if we let you run things at the pointy end, we might soon all die! :rotfl:

I've held a PPL for some years and not killed anyone, yet.

But actually, thanks to AndyPix's honest attempt to engage with the real questions about these softwares, the thread DOES actually look like it is getting somewhere.

You are deluded if you think it's getting anywhere.....