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The Mystery Ad
R. Alex Whitlock
The strangest thing has been happening on one of my computers. The other day I was listening to Rhapsody and I heard an advertisement for "Omega 3 Iceland Health." At first I thought it was a really weird Eels or They Might Be Giants track or something. But there wasn't even music in the background and it had nothing to do with anything. Was Rhapsody selling ads? That would really have irked me, but I couldn't imagine that they would do that. But I couldn't find another explanation for the fact that Rhapsody stopped playing so that this thing could play.
I chalked it up to a freak thing.
But twice over the past week the ad has started playing in the middle of the night. I will awaken at 3 in the morning to the sound of a bunch of people shilling for Iceland Health. Other than the first time, though, I've never really been in a position to see if maybe there is some sort of ad coming from my browser or something (mystery sounds in the past have come from aggravating Flash ads, for instance) that interrupted Rhapsody (Rhapsody sometimes doesn't get along with other audio programs such as WinAmp).
I don't know. I haven't had the chance yet to check the computer for spyware. If it is spyware, it's the first audio spyware I have ever run across. For now I just turn the speakers off before I go to bed.
Observations
Run spybot and ad-aware my man. Likely a popunder.
That's the plan. Like I said, I haven't had time to yet.
It's just really weird. Pop-up ads and pop-under ads I'm familiar with. It's the audio and the 5:13 length of it that I find so curious.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at the infection, though, if that's what it is. Slimbrowser is used intensively on that particular computer and it uses IE's (lack of) security.
If I am already running AdAware, do I need to add spybot to my routine as well?
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