Virus Drains Data Bundle R10 000 later.

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

Bruce000

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
229
Reaction score
0
Location
KZN South Coast
Not sure if you guys have chatted about this before, if so i apologize, but here goes.
One of my friends has a weekender that he uses on occasion as a data card on his laptop, if his prepaid one runs out. He had this data card in his laptop for tree days. He received a phone call from Vodacom yesterday that informed him that his account is standing at R10 000. Needless to say he almost Sh@t himself:eek:.
When asking Vodacom what happened they informed him that it could be a virus.
My question is, why should he be liable to pay this. Surely it should be Vodacoms responsibility to supply hardware that isn't susceptible to this kind of virus ( Like the banks take responsibility for Internet fraud). Surely there should be some kind of limit?
I spoke to a friend of mine that works in a Local Vodashop. He seems to think that it is the clients fault for accepting the virus. The thing is he does have an anti-virus program running 24-7 in the background.

Just would like to know what you guys think.

Thanks
B
 
I just love the way it's always Vodacom/MTN/CellC 's fault. Let me understand this ..... hang on i can't. How is this Vodacom's vault, so they must now make sure that you don't get a virus ?
 
Its not Vodacoms fault he has a virus./
However, I also believe that Telecom providers are very lax in allowing you to set an upper limit on your service.
Telkom for example - I want to have mine (my landline) "capped" at R800 - I never use more than R600 and if "something goes wrong", I would like a call at R800 asking me if I think I may have a problem.
Same with post-paid cell phone (I do NOT have a post paid contract for this very reason).
 
Who leaves a laptop running for 3 days anyway? Wouldn't it go to sleep? ( Unless it was on to DL p0rn :D )
 
Bruce000 said:
Like the banks take responsibility for Internet fraud
Click to expand...
Riiiight?!?!?
They will take the blame if they are at fault but they will not do anything for you for your own stupidity.
They have occasionally paid out to prevent bad PR - the same thing happened when people got scammed in the early days of ATM's. Don't expect it to continue forever though. People need to learn to take responsibility for their actions (and own stupidity)
 
Bruce000 said:
My question is, why should he be liable to pay this. Surely it should be Vodacoms responsibility to supply hardware that isn't susceptible to this kind of virus
Click to expand...

Your normal everyday data traffic going through the datacard:
Code: 
-¨û hëÅù|ï`ýù6BrïZ*~F- ‘ Œb¡±ïU=?¾øÚWÜ{]‚ƒõŠh¦nº6VMÒÄ{
Your normal everyday data traffic generated by a virus, going through the datacard:
Code: 
-¨û hëÅù|ï`ýù6BrïZ*~F- ‘ Œb¡±ïU=?¾øÚWÜ{]‚ƒõŠh¦nº6VMÒÄ{

So you need the Hardware to detect this evil data going through it? Sorry to burst your bubble here, but it is a Data card, not a Hardware anti-virus scanner! If you want it to be able to detect and stop Virus activity, then it will also flag and block your normal everyday data. Thus changing it into a Non-Datacard as it will keep Any data from flowing at all. Virusses does not generate activity that differs greatly from normal everday use so it would be difficult do detect in the first place.

Prevention is better than cure you know. Tell your friend it is time to get himself a nice free Virus scanner. A Anti-Virus program, like the free AVG, is designed to stop the Virus before it even gets a foothold on the Computer.

Dont blame Vodacom for someone else's stupidity.
 
Of course, it would also help if Vodacom and others didn't charge completely rip off out-of-bundle rates. Costs the client ten thousand. Costs Vodacom a few hundred.
 
Bruce000 said:
The thing is he does have an anti-virus program running 24-7 in the background.
Click to expand...

He has an Anti-Virus Program... runnining in the background... Virus shoots his bill sky high... Hmmmmmmm :confused:

It seems to me that he didnt keep his AV up to date, becoz if he had, it wouldve countered the virus, and he wouldnt be sitting with that bill.

He cant give Vodacom responsibility for keeping His AV Signatures up to date. Its not Vodacom's PC. Its HIS PC. Therefor, HIS responsibilty.
 
If your gardener leaves a sprinkler on during your long weekend away, the municipality will still charge you for the water. (No matter what viruses are involved!)
 
Insider said:
If your gardener leaves a sprinkler on during your long weekend away, the municipality will still charge you for the water. (No matter what viruses are involved!)
Click to expand...

Thats a wrong comparison... cause you can still have recourse by firing the gardener :P

More like...
If you leave a sprinkler on during your long weekend away, the municipality will still charge you for the water. (No matter what viruses are involved!)
 
Insider said:
If your gardener leaves a sprinkler on during your long weekend away, the municipality will still charge you for the water. (No matter what viruses are involved!)
Click to expand...

This exact thing happened to me. Gardener left a tap running, for a few weeks before we noticed. Bill: R26K :mad::mad:

Never realised that I could make it council's problem.....

One big culprit for high bills on 'virus-protected' systems, outside automatic updates, are P2P programs. You download one or two files you need and think that's it. But you forget the upload component with other P2P users now downloading from your system. In theory you could upload 4GB per day......

As ic said, netlimiter is great because it will show you this and can even limit specific apps.
 
are P2P programs. You download one or two files you need and think that's it. But you forget the upload component with other P2P users now downloading from your system. In theory you could upload 4GB per day......

That sounds more like the truth.. left something to download for 3 days and had massive uploads happening :confused:
 
Now for a more interesting scenario.

You have all virus and spyware scanners, totally up to date. You have a firewall that stops anything on earth. Suddenly, to take a leave out of IS's excuses, there is a denial of service attack on your IP address that you ten to one have inherited from someone else.

Your super efficient firewall stops all traffic dead in its tracks and not one byte of data enters your computer system. However Vodacom measures the traffic to your IP address somewhere before it reaches you, and you build up this massive account of thousands of Rand for traffic that you had no control over.

Who is responsible?
 
vodacom3g said:
This exact thing happened to me. Gardener left a tap running, for a few weeks before we noticed. Bill: R26K :mad::mad:
Click to expand...

However with my previous post in mind, a malicious guy did not send you millions of extra liters of water because you happen to live at a certain address.
 
ld13 said:
Your normal everyday data traffic going through the datacard:
Code: 
-¨û hëÅù|ï`ýù6BrïZ*~F- ‘ Œb¡±ïU=?¾øÚWÜ{]‚ƒõŠh¦nº6VMҐÄ{
Your normal everyday data traffic generated by a virus, going through the datacard:
Code: 
-¨û hëÅù|ï`ýù6BrïZ*~F- ‘ Œb¡±ïU=?¾øÚWÜ{]‚ƒõŠh¦nº6VMҐÄ{

So you need the Hardware to detect this evil data going through it? Sorry to burst your bubble here, but it is a Data card, not a Hardware anti-virus scanner! If you want it to be able to detect and stop Virus activity, then it will also flag and block your normal everyday data. Thus changing it into a Non-Datacard as it will keep Any data from flowing at all. Virusses does not generate activity that differs greatly from normal everday use so it would be difficult do detect in the first place.

Prevention is better than cure you know. Tell your friend it is time to get himself a nice free Virus scanner. A Anti-Virus program, like the free AVG, is designed to stop the Virus before it even gets a foothold on the Computer.

Dont blame Vodacom for someone else's stupidity.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your POSITIVE feedback. The thing is he does have AVG not even the free addition. The AVG automatically updates every day.
 
ernstn said:
Now for a more interesting scenario.

You have all virus and spyware scanners, totally up to date. You have a firewall that stops anything on earth. Suddenly, to take a leave out of IS's excuses, there is a denial of service attack on your IP address that you ten to one have inherited from someone else.

Your super efficient firewall stops all traffic dead in its tracks and not one byte of data enters your computer system. However Vodacom measures the traffic to your IP address somewhere before it reaches you, and you build up this massive account of thousands of Rand for traffic that you had no control over.

Who is responsible?
Click to expand...

It is an interesting one. How much data in such an attack?

I believe we do check for these kind of attacks with our in-line engines and will drop the connection.

Every now and then you'll get someone posting they can't do something on Vodacom 3G but it works on MTN or ADSL, we had the port 2000 issue recently, for example.

In every case it turned out that the packets were malformed and then the in-line sniffers got suspicious and dropped the connection. So these engines seem to work well to protect you.

To answer your question, if the packet was delivered to your card the billing engines will count it.
 
Insider said:
If your gardener leaves a sprinkler on during your long weekend away, the municipality will still charge you for the water. (No matter what viruses are involved!)
Click to expand...

More like a burst water pipe that the municipality is charging you for!!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X