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Thread: Interesting file in cookies folder

  1. #11
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    139

    Nice...
    I suppose that getting out of safe mode is the equivalent of restarting the box.

    Are there any native means within WIN to read the contents of the index.dat files?
    I think that Corel Word Perfect merge may work as well.

    I'll sniff some more.

    I ran across this site, offering a "free" index.dat viewer, but read the EULA carefully.
    It basically states that you agree to have your homepage of your browser changed,
    or if you just click "I Agree", you'll end up complaining about your browser being hijacked. Ain't it sweet, all this freeware.

    WARNING
    http://www.exits.ro/index-dat-viewer.html
    WARNING

    download and execute at your own risk!!!

    Sniff, sniff

    Ok, 30 minutes later...
    Here is IMHO a legit site with some cool freeware and it has a couple of simple
    apps to view your index.dat files. I've d/l'd two zip files and scanned them, read the license agreements, and decided to take it easy and first install the utility that allows you to "only" read those .dat files. The other utilty allows you to delete them as well.
    Interesting, to say the least...'cause there are some URL's I thought to be gone by now,
    and no, not porn, LOL. However, some of you guys might be in for a surprise....
    this is a cool app for all those snoopin' girlfriends with access to their boyfriends' box...
    http://www.it-mate.co.uk/support/idsuite.asp
    Index.dat QV , just a viewer...
    Index.dat suite , a viewer and you can delete files...

    Have fun browsing this site...and happy deleting.

    Well, another edit...
    I figured, what the heck, if I've gone this far, I might as well be a guinea pig.
    I've uninstalled Index.dat QV , which had a rather benign GUI, and installed
    Index.dat Suite version 2.5.5. This utility is much refined and features a "run once" setting in the registry that allows you to generate and run the batch file without having to run it manually. Just restart the box. It is important to note, that you have to go to "Settings" and check the files you want to delete. The GUI is a bit awkward at
    first, but it took me 5 minutes and a couple of trips back to the website to sort it out.

    Dang, all my index.dat files were squeaky clean. In retrospect, you can manually try to clean them by drilling into all the various folders (that's if you can find all of them) and drag and drop them into Spybot S&D, or use this neat utility. So, I've learned a bit more, which is quite satisfying. Well, I'm off to a defrag session now.






  2. #12
    Senior Member
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    Mar 2004
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    What's really cool with the "Index.dat Suite" is that when you highlight a URL, you can open it from within the utility; there's some really weird sites that come up, once you've gone thru a few. I like this app.

  3. #13
    I've never heard of these files before *smack*, I'll have to take a look on my machine when I get home.
    -gunder
    So much to learn, so little time.

  4. #14
    Senior Member
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    Mar 2004
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    How long have you owned your box for? Let us know the size of the various index.dat files.
    Oh, be forewarned. They say that when running the suite, it can take a while to get thru the search and then to generate the batchfile. I think it may apply to you, LOL.
    Let us know...oh yesssssss, pleasssssse lets us know, our little precioussss......

  5. #15
    meh, only 16 megs .. I was expecting more.
    -gunder
    So much to learn, so little time.

  6. #16
    Senior Member
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    Mar 2004
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    Is that just one file that you were able to find, or the cumulative total. There's a whole bunch of them.

  7. #17
    that's the total of all of them, can't remember how many exactly.
    -gunder
    So much to learn, so little time.

  8. #18
    Senior Member Zonewalker's Avatar
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    Jul 2002
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    949
    gunder -16 meg just for a bunch of text is actually quite a lot of data though!
    Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes

  9. #19
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
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    485
    One thing here is that these files can be beneficial in some circumstances.

    Last weekend I was round at a friends house fixing a bizarre hardware/driver conflict he was getting.
    This was a 4 year old, well maintained Win98 PC (patched, together with up to date AV & firewall).

    Never been scanned for spyware though, so I suggested we should do this, and Adaware & Spybot turned up 210 items
    However, my attention was drawn to the sextracker cookies that were detected
    When I told him his PC had been used to access porn he looked genuinely shocked.
    A quick look at the firewall log confirmed nothing dodgy had been accessed recently, and seeing as he didn't even know a firewall log existed, let alone how to alter it, that's good enough for me..

    Anyway, he told me that he had let his teenage nephew use the PC when he came to stay some time ago.
    A quick look at the index.dat files confirmed they had not been tampered with, and I was able to provide him with a list of very dodgy porn sites, together with an estimate of what date they were accessed.
    For basic analysis, you don't actually need any tools - just open a DOS window/command prompt, CD yourself to the appropriate location, and use good old fashioned EDIT to view and search the index.dat file.

    I offered to delete the index.dat files, but he declined, saying he wanted to keep the evidence to confront his nephew with.

    EDIT: As an aside, the reason booting in safe mode works, is that the index.dat files are no longer locked by Windows, as it doesn't use them in this mode If you use a normal boot you cannot delete them using Spybot shredder or anything else, although of course you can set up something that runs when you reboot, which is not quite the same thing ....

  10. #20
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    Mar 2004
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    Thanx for the info darkes,
    this thread has become highly instructional for me, as it illustrates the various methods of accessing files and being able to read the information contained therein. Also, the use of the CLI may be a lost art, but I find it really enhances the computing experience. I have this 'DOS for dummies', makes for a great bedtime read.

    It just gets me all excited, yesssss, my precioussss.......

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