May I humbly request that anyone who reads this post would be kind enough to share their knowledge on the questions raised here. I am new to this board, and as there are many clever people online here, I hope my queries do not fall into the “totally stupid” category. I am, however, willing to take the risk of being the board’s resident idiot (!), if it will assist me in the remedy to my problem:

I have recently – and for the first time – fallen victim to either a virus or Trojan attack of some kind but I don’t know what has actually been unleashed on my PC, thus I don’t know how to “look it up” in a virus database or online help centre in order to fix it.

The infection has occurred as a result of a “contaminated” website – it has NOT come via email or from downloading an attachment or free software or games etc. It would appear that this particular web URL is in itself the trigger to infect your PC such that if a person clicks on the web address, the virus/Trojan is activated at that exact time. By clicking on the website mentioned, the user receives the standard “information white screen” saying the website cannot be found; yet it appears to transmit something onto the user’s PC unbeknownst to the user.

The name of the website is:

www(dot)youdontknowwhoiam(dot)org

(I have written the URL above using (dot) because I do not wish to write the address as a “clickable” version since I am under the impression that once this address is clicked on, the damage, whatever that damage may be, is already done. I certainly do not wish to inadvertently direct other people to a known virus/Trojan location if “it” is indeed one.)

I believe that one of my computers has been infected by this web link and as I do not know exactly what has been unleashed upon it I am at a loss as to how to go about repairing the damage. Any insight that anyone can offer would be most gratefully appreciated for I've heard through the rumour mill that the website mentioned has/is causing great havoc amongst many Netizens, yet I have been unable to find out anything about what it is doing except that it is considered 'bad news' and the general sentiments expressed by other users is just to stay away from this URL altogether. From the rumours, the virus/Trojan sounds very ominous indeed, and yet it may actually be quite harmless and easy to remove. But the point is, I am desperately curious to discover what this domain name is actually doing and how I can protect myself from this type of infection in the future.

(This particular kind of attack raises many questions in my own mind regarding the overall integrity of the Internet, not the least of which is, how is a person to know that a web address could actually be a virus in disguise? If one is to become suspicious of every web address on the net, it undermines the entire surfing experience, for who would feel comfortable accessing “unknown” URLs if they feared being infected the moment they “clicked” upon that link? I am also curious as to whether the owner of this web domain has committed some sort of cyber crime by placing a virus/Trojan upon the net itself, as opposed to the usual method of sending nasty infections via “enticing” email messages designed to make the user read them…and weep.)

There are many strange and debilitating symptoms currently exhibited by my PC ever since this infection has occurred and there are also some very strange files residing on the PC which were created at the exact time that this web site was accessed. I am more than happy to furnish all the details as to what these symptoms/files are in another post if it is necessary. But first I thought it best to simply mention the web URL responsible for it may be that I am the only person on this board who is in the dark about this URL – perhaps this problem is common knowledge, and maybe someone out there knows the answer already thus further details are not necessary. If this is indeed the case, then I offer my apologies for being naive and wasting other people’s time; I have tried my best to understand this problem through various avenues before posting this question here, but have come up empty of results. (I also ran a search on this site for “youdontknowwhoiam” in case this topic has been discussed here before, but the search also came up empty too.)

Can anyone offer any insight into this matter – without having to access the link itself, an action that appears to be “the point of no return”?

In closing, I wish to thank in advance anyone who can help with this inquiry. And, for the record I just wish to impart that my own experience with trouble-shooting Microsoft Windows problems is very limited as I come from a mainframe/UNIX background and have only recently begun using Windows software from home for the simple purpose of personal web surfing. My machine that has been infected is currently shutdown and rendered idle until I know what the problem is for I do not wish to connect to the net on that machine in case the virus/Trojan author seeks to unleash chaos the next time I am online.

Any ideas from anyone as to what this problem URL is responsible for doing to all those unfortunate people who have been infected by it?

I thank you all for your time.

Sincerely,

dazednconfused