Dart+Communications+PowerTCP

[paul_london]

22/01/03 19:44:23 81.73.141.41
- W3SVC3166213.171.193.3980HEAD/index.htm-200030917931HTTP/1.0/Dart+Communications+PowerTCP--
anyone know what this is?
paul london

[threecrans]

This is a bot written using one of the PowerTCP HTTP activeX controls.

[paul_london]

'PowerTCP HTTP activeX controls'
what does that mean exactly, bit of a newbie

[wilderness]

<snip>'PowerTCP HTTP activeX controls'
what does that mean exactly, bit of a newbie</snip>

Paul,
Active X is not a good thing to have enabled if you store sensitive data.
Through Active X it is entirely possible (if your using a Windows OS) for somebody to access your Windows Registry or most any other part of your hard drive through JS.

As a precaution it is best to turn off both Active X and ANY kind of scripting when online (either email or internet.)

[digitaleus]

Wilderness,

Although that is good advice it does not relate to Paul's query. Paul is recieving hits from the activeX control, on someone else's machine.

Paul,

You must really be a newbie if you don't know how to copy and paste into google :P

Seems to be something made by these guys [dart.com...]

A brief glance suggests that it is a toolkit that can be used to make your own bot. In other words, the user-agent doesn't tell you who made this bot, except that they're possible a bit amateur. The IP address will be your main clue.

[digitaleus]

Two pieces of info :)

Reverse lookup gives us host41-141.pool8173.interbusiness.it

Visiting [81.73.141.41...] brings up a basic-auth login, domain "ADSL Router Configuration Web Server".

Looks like it's just some random user who's made themselves a bot :)

[paul_london]

thanks everybody