G. Morgan wrote:

> Sebastian G. wrote:
>
>>> Well I would have to argue that it *is* a matter of opinion. I have
>>> personally resurrected many a machine from the brink of uselessness by
>>> applying (freeware) solutions.
>>
>> No, you didn't. In fact, it's likely that they're still compromised.
>
> Yes, I did. No they're not.


Trivial counter-proof of your statement: Universal trojan horses exist.

>> These tools are absolutely useless, since even at
>> perfectly clean machines they're claiming a lot of nonsense. How should they
>> even provide any useful information about a system that actively lies to them?
>
> That's not been my experience. I've run both on brand new images of XP SP2 &
> 3 and got -zero- false positives.


Question: What's the difference between a brand new image and a well secured
and hardened system?

> So, being the "scientist" you are I'm sure you will now be offering the proof
> of your hypothesis. I will be waiting.


Trivial: Just change
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Tcpip\Parameters\DataBasePath
and it will complain that something isn't right.