Invisible Windows

[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 28 June 2013 07:47:08 GaryT did opine:

> Help :-)
> The ability to read help files doesn't solve this one.
> 
> I'm looking for a Linux programmer or expert super-user to say "Yes, by
> all means, do the following".  Any help appreciated.
> 
> Using version 10.04 LTS.
> 
> Today I had an incident where the mouse suddenly went haywire. It
> travelled all around the edges of the screen, it closed windows, made
> new folders, and generally clicked in and on all sorts of places.
> It has happened before and last time I solved it by replacing my KVM
> switch because it also happened on another machine.  That was with an
> earlier version Ubuntu and was a long time ago. With the new KVM switch
> there have been no issues, until now, and not yet on another machine.
> 
> When this happened in the past you had to delete all the unwanted new
> folders, restore all the deleted files and generally spend time cleaning
> up, after a reboot.
> 
And this has happened in the past too?  Either you have been hacked, wipe 
that drive clean & reinstall, or that mouse hates you, replace it.

In fact, I would not only do both of those, I would also order me a Buffalo 
Netfinity router, and install dd-wrt on it as insurance against being 
hacked again.  That is the best kept secret to home security, essentially 
like having a loaded 12 gauge shotgun leaning against the front doors 
inside frame.  And both write down, and set, an alphanumeric password at 
least 24 characters long.  Few hackers will even think of trying to guess 
the password since at 5 guesses a second, they will be century's doing it.

There are a couple rootkit snoopers extant, but neither seems to have been 
updated in at least a year, one is chkrootkit, the other is rkhunter.  But 
rkhunter needs to be installed on a clean machine since it keeps a database 
of the crc's of the important files so it can alert you later.

Another possibility is to install all of the clamav suite of tools.  This 
is being actively maintained today.  I have it scan all incoming emails via 
a procmail recipe very similar to the spamassassin recipe and quarantine 
suspect emails, and you can setup a cron job using another of its tools to 
scan the whole system twice daily.  That is a bit intensive so I schedule 
that to take place when I am normally doing something else, sleeping in the 
wee hours, or puttering in the shop afternoons.
 
Oh, and set a password they'll have to work at to hack when you re-install.
Limiting passwords to alphanumeric only, upper & lowercase alpha, you make 
it 62 times as hard to guess for every character you add because they'll 
have to try all 10 numbers, and all 52 characters for each attempt.

> However, today when the mouse went mad all my 4-5 open windows suddenly
> disappeared. After a reboot everything was seemingly back to normal but
> at the time, when the mouse madness suddenly ended, they were all
> gone... literally invisible!  I thought they must have all been closed.
> 
> As I shut down the machine to reboot, one of the previously opened
> windows flashed on the screen, and at that point I realised they had not
> necessarily been closed, they had just been completely hidden.
> 
> NOW...
> 
> When I minimise a window, it disappears.  Any/every window that's
> minimised, disappears. Windows used to minimise to the little panel that
> runs horizontally along the edge of the screen, and you could simply
> click on the "docked" window name to display it. Now they disappear
> completely.
> 
> Since this began, I've discovered and enabled the "Window Selector"
> which enables one to select (by name) and show a window that is not
> displayed.
> 
> The Alt-Tab key combination also still works, and all the open but
> 'invisible' windows are shown for selection (wish I had thought to check
> that one before rebooting today).
> 
> There is another little button in the corner of the screen. It appears
> not to have a title, but its tool tip message reads:  "Click here to
> hide all windows and show the desktop". When you click it certainly does
> hide all/any displayed windows, and a second click does not redisplay
> them, so at least it appears to be doing exactly what it's designed to
> do. I don't know whether a second click is supposed to redisplay them
> because I've never noticed or used it before.
> 
> Regardless of the status of that button, any window I minimise now
> simply disappears from view.  It hasn't been moved to another desktop or
> anything so simple, it literally disappears.
> 
> This may have nothing at all to do with the mouse going mad, and for the
> moment unless there is a known virus causing both, I'll treat them as
> separate problems, because there is no apparent connection. It could be
> just a coincidence they happened on the same day at the same time. It
> could be as simple as a wayward right mouse click bringing up a sub-menu
> and another selecting one of the options. But what?
> 
> Greatly appreciate any help.
> GaryT


Cheers, Gene
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> is up!
My views 
<http://www.armchairpatriot.com/What%20Has%20America%20Become.shtml>
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
A pen in the hand of this president is far more
dangerous than 200 million guns in the hands of
         law-abiding citizens.