2012-04-20 20:54:35.908192+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments
So the DNS Changer Working Group, which is trying to help people gracefully recover from a virus/attack that changed people's DNS servers, has sent out press releases pointing people to their web site. here's an example [Edit: was formerly an AP article].
You go there, and what's the question you really want answered? "Am I infected." That is the primary use case for this web site.
Continued in the comments...
[ related topics: virus Law Work, productivity and environment ]
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#Comment Re: made: 2012-04-20 20:55:05.016622+00 by: Dan Lyke
Am I (or "is my computer") infected.
Let's try to find out, shall we? Okay, we have a "Detect" button, click on that. bla bla bla, text, bla bla bla, okay, there's a table (first time there I skipped it completely, my "this looks like a block of ad copy" filters are tuned to that apparently), with the headings "URL", "Language" and "Maintainer". Wait, someone may have hijacked my DNS settings, you now have control over this DNS, and you're asking me to know what a URL is? Okay, let's find my language, English shows up in 7 of the 11 entries, maybe I should look at the URL to try to figure out which one is closest, they all have "-" and ".", and end in country codes, which probably isn't familir to your novice user, but let's try http://www.dns-ok.us/ where we get a bigger than my browser window logo. If we scroll down, we see the text "DNS Resolution = GREEN" and "Your computer appears to be looking up IP addresses correctly!"
Okay, so the background of that image is supposed to be red if it my DNS wasn't working.
Right.
Let's look at how many ways this is wrong.
I have a suggestion: You have control over the DNS happening. Why not redirect all web traffic to a web page which walks people through how to uninfect their computers?
Okay, maybe you don't want to scare them.
How about, at the very least, changing http://www.dcwg.org/ to examine the language options from the user's browser, and in the appropriate language, display one of two things as the very top thing on the page: "Your computer is NOT infected", or "Your computer is infected, here are some instructions on how to fix it". Then, yes, if you need to stroke the egos of those involved, or provide background, or whatever, do so.
But this? This is just stupid.