Scary question for an IT

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I have an email friend who lost her hard drive recently. When she was back up she was checking things and found several blue/green camcorder icons in her "cookies". She can't delete them and she can't find a reason for them to be there. The following is her response to my question about how to see these things so I could check my system. Does anyone know what these are? Does this have anything to do with Eschelon?

To check cookies for the camcorder icons: Okay...hit Start with your right click on your mouse.

Click Explore...with your left click mouse.

Go up to Cookies and click... All your Cookies will show up on the right hand side. Hit Edit...then Select All Hit File...then Delete All your Cookies should disappear. I have three camcorders left that won't disappear under any circumstances...and I can't match them with anything else in my system that show pictures of camcorders.

Also, if you want to get rid of your History... go the same route, but click on History. Today will show up, plus Yesterday and Last Week and Last Month. Double click on each one separately and Edit, Select All then File and Delete.

Let me know how it goes. If you have any little camcorders in your Cookies in your main controls, don't try to take them out...cause you'll crash. A clo ck will show up...then you'll crash. Really strange.

Good luck..and don't mess with these main controls too much. You'll change everything in your system and it may not work right any more. You might already know this and could probably teach me a thing or two...but wanted to warn you just in case.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), October 14, 1999

Answers

The "camcorder icons" you are referring to are .dat files. Internet Explorer uses these three, specifically, and Windows will swear up and down that it can not do without them. These three .dat files keep a nice history of web sites you've visited. Thanks a lot, Bill G.! Assuming you've just installed IE, keep untouched copies of all three of these files in a separate folder; then move these on top of the ones that have been written to when you want to clear them. If you want to experiment with these files, I recommend a less risky tampering method (which obviously applies to much more than these files): place a copy of them in a different directory first!

-- Mori-Nu (silkenet@yahoo.com), October 14, 1999.

Okay - I'll pass that on to my friend. Now here's another question. Since I'm on MacOS does this apply to my system? I use Netscape - not Explorer.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), October 14, 1999.

Mori-Nu Thanks for your answer...but could you explain, please, a little more simply on how to move the camcorders to a file? Some of us aren't real computer literate. Thanks Again! One more question? Are these camcorders the "back door" Microsoft left in their program?

-- P. Brad (OneFutBakr@aol.com), October 14, 1999.

Create a boot diskette, reboot PC with that diskette (A:\), then go to the path and delete the files (may have to set attributes first).

-- Jim (x@x.x), October 14, 1999.

Since I'm on MacOS does this apply to my system? I use Netscape - not Explorer.

Netscape's files are located in the Netscape folder within your preferences folder. There is a history file, appropriately named "Netscape History" and/or "Global History" and a "Magic Cookie" file which holds all your cookies. You can delete them if you wish, it won't cause any problems to your system.

-- (macs@are.great), October 14, 1999.



Jim, the way you described is the way I tried to get rid of the camcorders. A "clock" came up and then I crashed. Really strange. Best not to try to take them out...but need to be able to control them somehow?

-- P.Brad (OneFutBakr@aol.com), October 14, 1999.

I AM BILL. AND THERE'S NO ESCAPE.

-- BG (Bill@God.com), October 15, 1999.

P. Brad -

If you're on a Mac I can't help you - sorry. I'm sure it's a simple process, though. If you're on pc, first create a folder for your .dat file copies. Then right mouse click on the file you wish to copy and (strangely enough) click "copy." Right mouse click on the folder you created for your copies; then click "paste." There isn't really any reason to delete these .dat files out of the Cookies directory. Just make copies and overwrite the originals when necessary. To answer your last question, I don't know what you mean by "back door," but it does provide IE with a history that can't be cleared easily.

-- Mori-Nu (silkenet@yahoo.com), October 15, 1999.


Regarding "back door"...

Believe I read someplace that Microsoft has left a "back door" in their Microsoft hardware for the National Security Agency...

Could these camcorders be the "back door"?

-- P.Brad (OneFutBakr@aol.com), October 15, 1999.


These files are part of your Internet Explorer cache ("temporary Internet files"). The reason that they look like "camcorders" is that the .DAT file extension is also used for a type of movie file commonly used on video CD's. These are similar to MPEG files and Microsoft Media Player is registered to play them. The icon is coming from Media Player. It is just a bad coincidence that the cache files use the same extension and end up with the same icon.

The .DAT files are completely safe, but if the icon really bothers you, you can unstall Media Player. But please don't arbitrarily delete files. Somebody will end up having to reinstall your operating system.

Anyway, everybody knows that real trojan horse programs have icons that look like...

-- Robert Neely (robert_neely@ncsu.edu), October 29, 1999.



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