Vodacom pushing up bill? - BITS & Adobe Downloads [solved]

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Voltorr

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Hey guys... I need a little help.

My gf has one of those vodacom 3g usb modems and all of a sudden it is using insane amounts of data.

I've turned off all the usual suspects, anti-virus, windows updates, etc but in 15 minutes it used up 40 megs without me even touching the PC!

So second round of diagnostics was to install netlimiter monitor and all information was being received from a process (cannot remember the name right now, but it was one of the windows ones like svchost or such) with ip 41.0.2.72 or 41.0.2.73 which is Vodacom?

Since Vodacom is the ISP and all information i download goes through the ISP would netlimiter record the information as coming from Vodacom even though it may be some or other hidden program? Is that even possible or is it really just vodacom's fault?

Next step?

PS: She has Norton and it's paid for and fully up to date on a vista laptop if that helps.
 
Voltorr said:
So second round of diagnostics was to install netlimiter monitor and all information was being received from a process (cannot remember the name right now, but it was one of the windows ones like svchost or such) with ip 41.0.2.72 or 41.0.2.73 which is Vodacom?
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Are you sure those weren't your own IP addresses while you were connected?
 
do an ipconfig /all to see which IP's are yours

also

don't rely on Norton alone, use more than one different antivirus (avast, microsoft security essentials etc) to do a full scan on that PC

get a proper firewall with which you can selectively block outgoing/incoming packets.
 
The_Librarian said:
get a proper firewall with which you can selectively block outgoing/incoming packets.
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+1

Windows' firewall does a reasonable job of protecting your computer from the outside world (and Vodacom's network helps too), but doesn't do much to stop programs on your PC talking to the outside world. Try Zone Alarm Free Firewall or Comodo Firewall (also free).
 
I will try the ipconfig and take a look but last time i checked you couldn't have more than one anti virus and uninstalling norton only to install and update another one (last time i did that it had to download over 100 megs for just the update).. well that doesn't seem optimal?

Will give Zone alarm a go, how user friendly is it? It isn't going to work if she has to keep on saying allow or block because lets be honest she will land up either blocking everything or allowing everything... the descriptions can be somewhat useless at times.
 
Voltorr said:
It isn't going to work if she has to keep on saying allow or block because lets be honest she will land up either blocking everything or allowing everything... the descriptions can be somewhat useless at times.
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Zone Alarm has an option to remember your choice, so sit with her after installing and allow the programs she uses that need access, then tell her to deny everything in future.
 
thanks ginggs, i take it you've been through this before?

I will also try connect it to my pc and see if it also starts downloading hundreds of megs
 
That's an interesting coincidence as I've seen the same thing happening over the last few days.

I've been able to isolate the service host process that starts the downloads, but I can't figure pout which actual task is doing it. There seem to be a number of task within this service process, and stopping the process seems to end the downloads for a while. If I restart the laptop then it kicks in again and starts downloading again.

I've tried disabling some of the likely suspects in the service, like Application Experience but it's made no difference. Windows Update is switched off too.

Anyone else seen this? The only safeguard I have now is to pull the LAN cable out, but that's not really a fix!

BTW - the IP address that comes up in each case is 41.0.2.72 or 41.0.2.74. Has this got anything to do with Vodacom? I did a Whois on this address and that's the name that I get.
 
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Try disabling the BITS service and see if that helps?

right-click on my computer - manage - services and applications - services - Background Intelligent Transfer Service - disable it and see if it helps.

This is part of the WindowsUpdate service.
 
This is a long shot, but make sure to un-share all your files. People could do a mass IP scan of SA addresses and poke around their shared folders. Don't know if this still holds for today.
 
Has she got Adobe reader installed? It loves to download the update and then tell you it is ready for installation.
 
ABCpt said:
Has she got Adobe reader installed? It loves to download the update and then tell you it is ready for installation.
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Indeed.

And the only way to turn this one of is to be online while its checking for an update.
 
Or just rename AdobeUpdateCheck.exe to AdobeUpdateCheck.old and see if it makes any difference.
 
Iam3G said:
And the only way to turn this one of is to be online while its checking for an update.
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yeah, this is the dumbest thing i've ever seen.

it would be like a car only being able to open it's bonnet when the car is on.
so if you can't switch it on, you can't open the bonnet.

that thing comes up also only when you LEAST expect it to.

Only Adobe.... :p
 
The_Librarian said:
Try disabling the BITS service and see if that helps?

right-click on my computer - manage - services and applications - services - Background Intelligent Transfer Service - disable it and see if it helps.

This is part of the WindowsUpdate service.
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That seems to do it. I've been watching it carefully for a while now with Netlimiter, and right after I killed BITS then Adobe started doing something so I immediately uninstalled that too. Stupid Adobe! I'll have to find another reader, but that's probably a good thing.

I know this has cost me a lot of Mbs (and at 3G prices that really hurts!) but I'm glad I saw it when I did.
 
lotus123 said:
That seems to do it. I've been watching it carefully for a while now with Netlimiter, and right after I killed BITS then Adobe started doing something so I immediately uninstalled that too. Stupid Adobe! I'll have to find another reader, but that's probably a good thing.

I know this has cost me a lot of Mbs (and at 3G prices that really hurts!) but I'm glad I saw it when I did.
Click to expand...

Go look at foxit reader.
 
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