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Thread ID: 28428 2002-12-19 03:53:00 Paradise 128k Broadband Steve Askew (119) Press F1
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107482 2002-12-19 03:53:00 Hi everyone, We have had Paradise likely Broadband for 1 week now & there is some unexplained megabyte usage.
When I check my usage at paradise hompage there is always a reference to an International IP address 207.26.131.137 & the usage is Approximately 20mb per hour.
It doesn't sound much but it is still using this 20mb when I'm not even at the computer.
My os is win xp pro & the only progs that I'm aware of running in the background are AVG & icq,I have disabled these progs & still the 20megs dissapear.
A friend down the road has paradise 128k Broadband & the same computer as us but running win ME & when he checked his usage he also had the same megabyte usage to the same IP as us.
So as a test I set the cable modem up on our kids Win98 computer & left it on the net for a few hours this morning & when I had a look there was no megabytes missing to the above IP.
Just wonder if anyone else is having this problem too? or if anyone has some ideas why & where these megabytes are going?
I have run adaware & the only things it found were some doubleclick cookies.
According to adaware the the following procecess's are running.
Running processes:#:1 : smss.exe #:2 : winlogon.exe #:3 : services.exe #:4 : lsass.exe #:5 : svchost.exe #:6 : svchost.exe #:7 : spoolsv.exe #:8 : explorer.exe #:9 : hkcmd.exe #:10 : taskswitch.exe #:11 : fast.exe #:12 : dumeter.exe #:13 : mmkeybd.exe #:14 : directcd.exe #:15 : avgcc32.exe #:16 : keybdmgr.exe #:17 : osd.exe

Cheers & Merry Christmas, Steve
Steve Askew (119)
107483 2002-12-19 04:23:00 The numbers I traced back to "ANS Communications Ltd" if it is any help. For reverse look up of IP addresses go to http://www.eamnesia.com and do a reverse look up.
Bye
Peter H (220)
107484 2002-12-19 04:57:00 Thanks for replying,I wonder why these 2 different computers would want to send/recieve 20megs of data per hour with ANS Communications, Inc?

Cheers Steve
Steve Askew (119)
107485 2002-12-19 08:38:00 Well I finaly found the culprit after installing zonealarm.
Perhaps I should have mentioned that both these computers are Hewlett-Packards , except I dumped ME in favour of XP.
Any how it turns out that the culprit is the multimedia Keyboard Driver mmkeybd.exe
I didn't think it was HP related as I did a fresh XP install so I didn't have to put up with all the HP extra cr*p & the only hp driver I installed was for the keyboard.
I did a search on google for mmkeybd.exe & was surprised at what I found.
I was also surprised that ad-aware with latest signiture files didn't identify it.
The following is an extract from one site.
Cheers Steve

[ removed ]

Needless to say. We will NOT be buying another HP computer!

And we will not buy the Netropa One-Touch Multimedia Keyboard
Steve Askew (119)
107486 2002-12-19 19:37:00 Glad you solved it, but HP should be roasted in the press for this. I would suggest a letter/Email to the editor of PCW. You shouldn't have to install another prog to fix the problem.
Bye
Peter H (220)
107487 2002-12-19 19:59:00 OOCHH I HAVE NEVER OWNED A h/p PC and looks like I wont ever do so in the near future , besides their having small cases and thus no room for exapansion plus inadeaquate powersupplies this tops the cake you also end up paying top $$ for the name kiwibeat (304)
107488 2002-12-19 20:00:00 Thats shocking. Makes you wonder what info they are collecting and for what reason.

I have a Packard Bell and intend to make "enquiries" into my MM keyboard as well.

Good work Steve. Merry Xmas!

BALDY:-)
Baldy (26)
107489 2002-12-19 20:13:00 Sheesh.....

I just typed Netropa into Start>Search and I got that blasted file as well. I am rightly peeved and bloody furious. Adaware has never picked this one up, and I wonder how many other people have it installed who have been very careful to install "spyware" free programs such as Kazaa Lite.

BALDY:-)
Baldy (26)
107490 2002-12-19 20:32:00 glad you got it sorted. firewalls sure come in handy. its should be safe to install the keyboard drivers just block them with the firewall. just make sure they don't hook into IE and use IE to access the net.

i've seen hardrive utilities, printer drivers and a few different keyboard drivers all try connect to the net. if i remember correctly with some (compaq i think had them) to change the button settings you had to connect to the net and access a certain webpage so you could assign the buttons. i guess i won't be buying one of those in a hurry.
tweak'e (174)
107491 2002-12-19 20:40:00 > HP should be roasted in the
> press for this. I would suggest a letter/Email to the
> editor of PCW. You shouldn't have to install another
> prog to fix the problem.

I think you should too, could make a nice story.

Oh the joys of a home-made PC.
I know not to install spy-ware (Yet have Ad-Aware on my PC just in case) and the family login has about 3megs spare HDD in their user login, so that's not really enough for most spyware appz.

But a KEYBOARD?!

That sounds really dodgy having a keyboard reporting back to HP over the net... Who knows, maybe they'll think next that Key-Logging is acceptable!

Buyer-Beware!
Chilling_Silence (9)
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