The Diary of A Simple Man

My troubles with McAfee's SpamKiller began no later than September 26th, and actually probably closer to September 20th. Today is October 27th. The problem is still not solved. McAfee has still not written back; I guess they haven't been able to find an expert on SpamKiller.

Between 10PM last night and 9:12 AM this morning I received 87 emails. Of those, 84 were spam, and the remaining three were from mailing lists that I don't read that often. Am I the only one who'd like to see spammers heads' being used as pinatas?

I finally got a letter from Major General Franklin Kirby (i.e. the senior McAfee tech), which explained the ten-day silence: he was trying to find a SpamKiller expert to help me. He apparently hasn't found one yet. It has taken more than ten days for McAfee to locate an expert on their own software.

But then, my (unfortunately too late) research turned up that SpamKiller was NOT originally a McAfee program; they bought it, but apparently they don't support it very well. And by all accounts SpamKiller uses an inferior methodology. It has junked quite a few valid emails, and let a lot of bad ones through.

Okay. SpamKiller sucks, and if I'd done a little research beforehand I'd have saved my money and tried something like Popfile or Spambayes. I may still try them, actually, assuming I'm able to uninstall SpamKiller without also uninstalling the antivirus program.

But now more than ever I'm planning to let my entire McAfee subscription lapse next year and switch to Norton Antivirus and a Bayesian spam filter.

Well, it's almost midnight and I'm online again with McAfee. Same problem. But this time I was able to capture the conversation, so I thought I'd post it here for the terminally bored. To protect the technician I have changed his name to John Matrix, the name of Arnie's character in the unappreciated classic Commando. The senior tech's name has been changed to Franklin Kirby, Matrix's commanding officer. I am feeling silly tonight. That is all.

Please wait while we find a technician to assist you...
You are currently at position number 2 in the queue.
You have been connected to John Matrix.
John Matrix: Peter, thank you for contacting the McAfee Online Support Center. How can I assist you today?
Peter Maranci: Hi. I've been having a serious, ongoing problem.
Peter Maranci: I have been contacting McAfee for over three weeks now, and have been escalated twice.
Peter Maranci: The problem is still not solved. VirusScan seems to be conflicting with my newly-purchased SpamKiller.
John Matrix: Okay.
Peter Maranci: I was emailed by an Escalation Team member a week ago.
Peter Maranci: His email was blocked by SpamKiller because it "looked like spam".
Peter Maranci: When I managed to get back in touch with him, he recommended uninstalling and reinstalling SpamKiller.
Peter Maranci: It didn't work, and when I emailed him and told him so...I never heard back from him again.
Peter Maranci: I think it's understandable that I am not at all happy.
Peter Maranci: VirusScan is apparently detecting viruses in infected email which is being blocked by SpamKiller. I am constantly interrupted by warnings.
John Matrix: What is the warning ?
Peter Maranci: Depends on what's in the blocked emails. Exploit-MIME.gen.c, W32/Swen@MM, and W32/Yaha.g@MM are common.
Peter Maranci: I've been through this many, many times now so here's the information I know you need: I am running Windows 98 SE, 4.10.2222 A.
Peter Maranci: My IE version is 6.0.2800.1106CO. 128-bit.
Peter Maranci: Build 8.0.20 Engine Version 4.2.60 DAT Version 4.0.4298
Peter Maranci: SpamKiller 5.0.57.
John Matrix: Peter, when was your issue escalated ?
Peter Maranci: Hold on, let me see...
Peter Maranci: The second time was around October 11.
Peter Maranci: The first time was a day or two earlier, I believe. But there was a glitch on the technician's end and he lost me. Took me an hour to reach someone again.
Peter Maranci: The second tech was Franklin Kirby.
John Matrix: May I place you on hold for a couple of minutes while I research that for you?
Peter Maranci: Yes.
John Matrix: Thank you for holding.
Peter Maranci: Okay.
John Matrix: Please tell the session number which you had with Franklin ?
Peter Maranci: Our communication was by email, no session number. I have many session numbers from other people, though, and I have his complete email.
Peter Maranci: By "other people", I mean other technicians with whom I had previously spoken.
Peter Maranci: In chat.
Peter Maranci: I just looked through my log file, and I have 8 session numbers saved. The last was 1234567.
Peter Maranci: Which was not with Franklin. That was...let me see...Rae Dawn Chong.
John Matrix: Okay.
John Matrix: Give me a couple of minutes.
Peter Maranci: Okay...
[About five minutes pass]
John Matrix: Thank you for holding.
Peter Maranci: S'okay.
John Matrix: Peter, did you had the same issue when your case was being handled by Franklin.
Peter Maranci: It has been the same issue throughout, yes.
John Matrix: Okay.
Peter Maranci: Of course, at first I thought it was a virus infection. Only later did it become clear that it was a SpamKiller/VirusScan conflict.
John Matrix: Peter, you will receive e-mail from us.
Peter Maranci: However, by the time I emailed with Franklin the real problem had become pretty clear.
Peter Maranci: That would be nice.
John Matrix: Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?
Peter Maranci: Please cc: it to spamonno@yahoo.com as well as my home address (XXX@XXXXXXX.net), since I cannot be sure that SpamKiller won't block it.
John Matrix: Okay.
Peter Maranci: I've added Franklin into the filter, but it doesn't seem to work right 100% of the time.
Peter Maranci: When may I expect the email? Roughly?
John Matrix: It will at earliest. [HUH?]
Peter Maranci: I see.
Peter Maranci: Well, I need to get some sleep, so if you could give me the session number? There are no other issues for me right now.
[Long pause]
Peter Maranci: Hello?
John Matrix: Your reference number for this chat session is COMMANDO.

Okay, the reference number wasn't actually COMMANDO, but why would you care what that number was? :D

Sleep. Now.

When it's McAfee's SpamKiller, that's when. Oh, there's been a lot of amusement of late. I've spent a lot more time online talking to technicians, none of whom have been able to fix the virus problem - but the picture is now a lot clearer.

One funny thing: I had my case re-escalated, and was told that I would be contacted within three hours via email. Three hours later, there was no contact...until I took a look at the blocked email log of SpamKiller. You guessed it, McAfee's SpamKiller killed email from the McAfee escalation team because it looked like spam. Ouch.

At this point it seems very likely indeed that there is no real virus problem, and never was - the problem is that McAfee is detecting the viruses in blocked virus-infested inbound email, which is quarantined by SpamKiller. So I've been working my ass off trying to solve a problem that was caused by the people who are supposed to be PROTECTING me from all this!

The virus is back. McAfee sucks. That is all.

I hope I'm not jumping the gun, but it looks like the virus problem has been solved. McAfee never called or emailed as they said they would, so last night I gave them another try on live chat.

And for once, I reached someone who actually knew what they were doing. The ironic thing is that the cure didn't involve McAfee software at all!

The virus kept manifesting in a set of appearing-disappearing files in two subfolders of McAfee's SpamKiller software. The filenames were all very similar; something like M000000000000000267.EML. Only the last three or four digits would vary.

Anyway, the tech had me run a complete system search for *.eml, which turned up 1,166 files in the SpamKiller folders. She had me delete them all, clear the Recycle bin, and then for safety's sake restart in safe mode and run VirusScan. Which showed that the system was, finally, clean.

It's running much more smoothly and quickly now, and overall I'm quite pleased. Although it shouldn't have taken so long to reach a competent McAfee agent. Still, it feels so good to have the system running well again that I'm not worrying about it.

It's been three days now, and still no word from McAfee about my terrible virus problem. And SpamKiller is clearly not working right - messages are coming through that I know should be filtered out (because I created the filters).

Last night I started to try to contact a tech on live chat again, but when I started up there were 21 people ahead of me. Which from past experience meant that I might have been able to get some totally useless advice by 2:30AM. I really needed sleep, so I went to bed instead.

I've tried a few other free online scans, by the way, and while all of them have indicated and supposedly cleaned several virus infections, none of them has actually worked.

Did I mention that all the infected files are in McAfee's SpamKiller? And that I didn't really have this problem until I installed SpamKiller? Or at least, I didn't notice it until then.

Okay, this guy is kicking me up to the next level of support. They will contact me "by phone or email". I'm so bleeping tired.

Funny, being on hold in chat isn't any better than on the phone. Jesus, I'm sick of the canned phrases. This guy is claiming he's a supervisor. Bullshit. You don't get connected to a supervisor on the first round.

I'm almost wondering if a hacker is controlling my system and trying to see if he can drive me insane.

Oh my god McAfee sucks. This is so goddamn outrageous. I was online speaking to a tech for the FIFTH TIME this evening, WASTING another night. This one finally bumped me up to his supervisor. Who kept me online for an hour and then DISAPPEARED due to "technical problems".

I FUCKING HATE MCAFEE. DON'T USE THEM DON'T USE THEM DON'T USE THEM.