Bizarre Email Composer Keystroke Security Question...HELP!!!

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phallus007
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Joined: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 7
24 Jan, 2005 7:47 am Bizarre Email Composer Keystroke Security Question...HELP!!! [sdp=51786]  

Ok, I am not a security expert by any means, but I had a really strange feeling about a client in my office. He uses Netscape Mail extensively, and tends to send rather sensitive information at times.

The bizarre incident is that I had just reformatted his machine, and put his profile and old emails from Netscape 7.1 into a brand new installation of Netscape 7.2.

The first week or so he had a "normal" straight-lined cursor when he went to the composer to compose an email message. A few days ago, he noticed that when he went to the Composer as he normally does, that the cursor looked abnormal. The cursor had somehow been changed ever so slightly. There was a really tiny pixel sticking out of the bottom, making it look just a little bit different than usual. He was instantly suspicious of whether his email had been "hijacked." He was wondering if there was any way an attacker could be monitoring his keystrokes or hacking into his emails.

Just to make sure that it's not a universal cursor problem, I went to MS Word, and the cursor looked fine, as it does in all the other processor programs..it only looks strange in the Netscape Composer. I thought it might just be the image used for the cursor may have some way been corrupted or something, but I have no idea about how that could have happened.

Does this make any sense to anyone? Is this possible? Has anyone ever heard of this, or encountered this strange scenario? Do you think it's still safe for him to use this installation of Netscape 7.2, or has his mail become compromised? Should I reinstall? He's definitely using an SSL secure connection when he sends...but maybe something has been hacked? Please help me out, you guys are the experts...let me know what you think...thanks,

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
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Al
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Joined: 20 Dec 2002
Posts: 1696
24 Jan, 2005 4:58 pm [sdp=51808]  

I don't think so. It might just be a Netscape bug. Do you mind to show us a screenshot?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041108 Firefox/1.0

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Fulvio
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Joined: 19 Jun 2002
Posts: 11048
25 Jan, 2005 8:35 pm [sdp=51883]  

Also, when you say Composer, do you mean the Composer which allows you to write Webpages, or composer as a different name for mail, since it says Compose on top. In any event, reinstalling the program would not hurt. All personal info. is preserved. But, it would not do a thing if you it is related in any way to the Profile. I doubt that the fellow would ever be satisfied. But, if concerned about Hijacking, has he ever considered using one or more of the many anti-Spyware programs or firewalls. There is lot that can be done to reassure himself, and, I ,personally, having a hard time visualizing an intruder, saying, hey, I am here.

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Al
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Joined: 20 Dec 2002
Posts: 1696
26 Jan, 2005 9:01 pm [sdp=51929]  

This might be a Gecko problem. Try en.wikipedia.org, It has that same little pixel error

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