I was trying to retrieve my emails from Mozilla this morning

[shance]

when a message popped up and said that my emails were being "processed" and to try back later.

Wondering who or WHAT was processing my emails, I decided to shut my computer down when another message then appeared saying (something like),

"other people are currently logged on to your computer. Shutting down your computer MIGHT CAUSE THEM TO LOSE DATA. Do you want to continue?"

Hell yes!

So, who was on my computer, (other than Agent Mike and George Bush :P ) , how are they logging on, and anyone have any ideas what I can do about it?

[DemInDistress]

1. wow !! seems awfully suspicious, sniff sniff what do I smell?

Is it NSA? is it CIFA? is it FBI?CIA? or all of the mentioned ??


scary...

[seemslikeadream]

2. It has happened to me

and after I discovered it my whole internet access was deleted! It was soon after the Black box voting thing came up

[shance]

10. Well, the Bush/Cheney people have been bothering many of us for a while

Since the Bush years have significantly distanced me from many in my family (I have a brother who is a Bush appointee) and I come from a Republican world, they have not liked my "disloyalty" for quite some time.

[EFerrari]

3. shance, do you have a cat?

My cats log in, they go shopping and even select hot keys. I'm not kidding. :)

[shance]

11. Now that's impressive*

I have a golden retriever but I don't think hes quite as agile as your kitties!

[Occulus]

4. I've gotten that reboot message before

I'm not certain what the cause is, but it always seems to be related to certain processes running in the background that, for example, may be using administrator priveleges. Since there wasn't any network traffic occurring at the time, I just shut it down and uninstalled the app that was running at the time; it never happened again.

[LaurenG]

5. That sounds weird but it happens to my husbands lap top

all the time. I always laugh at this "other people are currently logged on to your computer. Shutting down your computer MIGHT CAUSE THEM TO LOSE DATA. Do you want to continue?". I think it's a glitch in the system. We are on the same browser. I don't get that message though and we are on a network. I don't know for sure what causes it.

[Pirate Smile]

8. I like it when it says my computer or the program has performed

"an illegal operation". I'm always waiting for the cops to show up at the door.

Of course, I always have no idea what the hell just happened.

[Pirate Smile]

6. I got that message about other people being on my computer one time.

I noticed my laptop, which normally shuts off after a certain amount of time, was still on in middle of the night - it should have already turned off.

I tried to shut it down and that message popped up - "other people are currently logged on to your computer. Shutting down your computer MIGHT CAUSE THEM TO LOSE DATA. Do you want to continue?"

It freaked me out too.

I shut it down and was thinking :wtf: as I tried to fall back to sleep.

This was at least a year ago.

[shance]

13. Don't they have anything better to do?

I keep thinking, are they really using our taxpayer money to spy on us?

[LoKnLoD]

7. Uncheck file and printer sharing

In control panel, networks connection under which ever connection you use to get on the internet, ie local area connection, wireless connection

[shance]

12. Thank you. I'll give it a shot.

n/t

[Sticky]

9. Mozilla tech support says

you need to uninstall EXTENSIONS by going in to START>PROGRAMS>MOZILLA FIREFOX>MOZILLA SAFE MODE
Uninstall any extensions, reopen browser and all should be well. I had a corrupted extension (don't know which one, just uninstalled all of them) and everything was fine after that.
Good luck

[Deja Q]

14. Spyware? Virus? Trojan (not the good kind)?

Might be Agent Mike... OTOH it's just as likely to be Hacker Ken lookin' for some barbie action you might have on your PC...

Download, install, update, and scan your computer with these:

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022-10289035.html

http://www.lavasoft.com/

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

It takes very little time for an unprotected PC to get hit with something these days. Even with antivirus protection, et al, visiting one website with just the right advertisement banner can cause problems.

Good luck. :hug:

[LaurenG]

16. Thank you for the links!! We will be running all of them

I appreciate your input.

[Poll_Blind]

15. A quick way to tell who is on your computer....

There are two basic ways that someone might be using your computer- via running a process (program) on your system or accessing shared files over the network. Both of these require XP, because that's what I have the time to explain, but Windows 2000 users can probably do the same/similar thing.

Processes:
Hit ctrl-alt-del. When the Windows Task Manager comes up, click on the processes tab then place a check in the "Show processes from all users" box at the bottom of the list. Sort the list by user name (by clicking no the "User Name" column header. Look for anything other than System, Network Service, Local Service and your username. This is no where near fool proof- many threats install themselves as a system service. Which is where good anti-spyware (like Spybot Search and Destroy) comes in.

Shares:
Right click on your My Computer icon and select Manage. Expand System Tools then expand Shared Folders. Click on Sessions and Open Files and see what, if anything, appears on the right. If there is someone logged on to your machine, you can kick them off by right clicking on their entry in the Sessions.

This is by no means exhaustive, but it was free advice.

PB

[demnan]

17. There's a new virus going around

maybe they got hit and shut down their smtp server so it wouldn't send mail out.