ML> EV> I would like to know what others think about my keeping these three
ML> EV> PUPs on my computer as I think they are OK and nothing to worry about,
ML> EV> even though McAfee says I should be worried about them.

ML> BR> IMHO it sounds safe enough,

ML>i'm of the same mind... i wouldn't worry about them...

Thanks Mike and Ben,

ML> BR> I have a few PuPs as well I had to "Allow" for Mcafee, though I
ML> BR> use the MS product now. Any program that kills processes will get
ML> BR> flagged as a pup I would imagine.

ML>not only if it kills processes but remember that the executable code is
ML>analysed for certain patterns... i've actually written DOS apps that were
ML>flagged as PUPs... why? because they were self-modifying... they stored
their
ML>settings options within the exe instead of in a separate file...

ML>i've also had some programs that shelled out to run others get flagged as a
ML>PUP... this was due to the way they poked about in memory grabbing parts of
ML>itself to write out to a swap file to free up as much memory as possible for
ML>the sub program to operate... these are only two reasons why a program may
be
ML>listed as a PUP...

I'm not a programmer unless you call my programming in QBASIC and LOGO
programming.

Tom gave me a link to read in the WIN95 echo and after reading it I did
my own search at ASK.COM and read a bit more about killwind.

Looks to me like something for HP Tech Support to use. while they are
looking inside a persons computer, to stop programs that are running so
they can tell if what they did 'fixed' the problem the owner had called
about.

ML>another one i've seen is the distributed.net dnetc.exe client listed as a
ML>PUP... there were folk getting it onto machines that they didn't have
ML>permission to put it on... they were doing this to build up their "farm" of
ML>machines contributing work under their account... dnetc.exe got flagged as a
ML>virus for a while because of this and then it was finally listed as a PUP...
ML>you are specifically running it, it is neither a virus nor unwanted ;)

That one sounds to me like something a user on a UNIX system might try
doing.

I'm not even going to do a search for dnetc.exe on the web because it
probably is WAY OVER my head!

Ed can take just so much of this high level computer stuff that's old
hat to you.    ;-)


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