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October 30, 2005

Windows Hell - The Scary Fake MSN Messenger Virus Thingy

by Ferdinand T Cat

The network of people who communicate via MSN Messenger are being subjected to a particularly terrifying joke. Essentially, someone has created a set of three animated smileys that appear to be a downloading virus. The standard method for applying the joke is to add the smileys to your MSN Messenger installation and then type in the activation characters (usually something like "zzzcccxxx"). The victim sees an animated graphic that appears to be a file download called "Virus". You can see the effect here.

Because the joke involves three animated GIF files operating in precise synchronization, it must have required a great deal of effort to produce it. I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. Either way, don't get worked up if you see this thing. It's just a joke.

Finding the joke GIFs proved to be somewhat of an adventure. The Girl Who Feeds Me played the joke on Bruce. So that we could write this article, Bruce told MSN to add the joke smileys, then used a product called CE/DP Stealer to extract the GIF files from MSN's smiley cache. CE/DP Stealer is just as tacky as it sounds, and is very highly NOT recommended. The version Bruce installed came with no less than three spyware products, including a browser hijacker and a surf tracker.

So, as always, be careful, but remember that a real MSN virus is unlikely to announce itself using a hot pink progress bar. Instead of panicking and running an anti-virus scan, just send the prankster a few dozen nudges.

That should shake him up enough that he'll pick his victims more carefully next time.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

Trackposted to Big Dog's Weblog, Blue State Conservatives, Cao's Blog, Euphoric Reality, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Point Five, Real Teen, Soldier's Angel Holly Aho, The Political Teen, TMH's Bacon Bits, Jo's Cafe, Basil's Blog, Wizbang, , Mudville Gazette, bRight and Early, and a four-legged, three-headed Martian named "Zog"

# At Sun 10:28 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (9) | More Windows Hell

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Tracked on January 1, 2006 11:20 PM

Comments

i want the virus thingy :)


Posted by: luke fowler at March 8, 2006 9:10 AM

i want it bad from tyrqll


Posted by: luke fowler at March 8, 2006 9:19 AM

Can you message me so I can add the smileys? I would really appreciate it.


Posted by: SyM at April 3, 2006 10:55 PM

lmao, yea i got that from a friend before, but i went like wtf?, it's funny.


Posted by: Esra at February 9, 2007 11:18 AM

plzzzzzz send me that joke virues its well good
plzzzzzz send me that joke virues its well googplzzzzzz send me that joke virues its well good to gettinmad@hotmail.com
if u do I would tell u how to get any ones msn password but shhh don't tell everyone I am the guru hacker


Posted by: guru at February 27, 2007 6:55 PM

can someone make those 3 gifs into one animated gif and send the link to tondopie@gmail.com


Posted by: max at March 5, 2007 8:10 PM

salut a toutes le monde


Posted by: hossam at March 24, 2007 4:59 PM

could someone help me to learn my boy--friendes msn code??please may be he cheats me with an other girls.i need your help to get the password


Posted by: burcu at August 4, 2007 3:11 PM

hi i am the girl wh wants to learn her boyfriends msn password.if somone will help me i will be happy.please i need some help for these.burcumrt_714@hotmail.com


Posted by: burcu at August 5, 2007 1:12 AM

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