Re: Unknown download activity in background - how to determine what it is?
Which Sysinternals apps call home?
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com
"John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message
news:OovEbld0HHA.5380@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Kayman wrote:
>
>> "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message
>
>> It's a pc, apply your own logic (utilise sensible apps.); So take
>> ownership, do some research, do not consult advertisement-driven
>> publications and be responsible - *you* are in charge! If you don't like
>> pc go for available alternatives.
>
> Regardless of what you might think I am no slouch at computers and I don't
> use Adware! Did you know that some of the new Sysinternal (Microsoft)
> utilities call home without your knowledge? Did you know that these
> Sysinternal utilities do not tell you that they call home and that they
> provide no inbuilt mechanism to stop this behaviour? Do you agree that
> those applications, amongst others, should be calling home without the
> user's knowledge? Do you agree that users should have no easy method to
> detect and stop these unwanted connections? By the contents of your posts
> I would say obviously not! There are many other legitimate applications
> that call home for no valid reasons, when you install these application
> they don't always tell you that they will be calling home and they don't
> always make it easy to find that out or to disable "call home" features.
> I am sure you didn't know of the Sysinternal utilities calling home and I
> am sure that you are not in charge of your computer as much as you thing
> that you are! But then you don't think that users should have a way of
> being made aware or of stopping those outbound connections so who cares
> about "being in charge" of their computers?
>
>
>> M/S firewall *can't* do (but they could) because it's recognised to be
>> waste of resources and time. And yes, PFW's are IMO of no value
>> whatsoever; I know because I operate without these apps.
>> John John, don't get blinded by all the marketing hype 
>
> Marketing hype? It appears that you are the one blinded by marketing
> hype! Microsoft marketing hype! The misinformation published in one of
> the Microsoft articles provided by another poster makes it clear that
> Microsoft and its shills are on a mission to discredit all firewalls that
> monitor outbound connections and to insist that the Microsoft firewall is
> somehow or other superior to all others. Quite amusing when it's coming
> from an outfit that until a few years ago didn't even know what a firewall
> was! As for your comments of "waste of resources" it is laughable to say
> the least. It this day and age of fast processors and large amounts of
> RAM this is a non issue. Also, the firewall will be using resources just
> to do its basic job of keeping intruder out, the little extra needed to
> monitor outbound connections is negligible.
>
> Lets get one thing perfectly clear here, I am not claiming, nor have I
> ever claimed that outbound connection monitoring was an effective method
> of dealing with all sorts of malware. I am simply saying that outbound
> monitoring is a useful tool that can alert you to some not so clever
> malware trying to call home and that it can alert you that something like
> your printer software, or Microsoft components might be trying to access
> the internet for no good reason at all. But then it appears that you
> think that users shouldn't know that these things are calling home.
> Neither you, nor Microsoft, nor anyone else will ever convince me that
> outbound connection monitoring is not a useful feature. Period!
>
> John