greetings.

last night while reading articles at 'news.yahoo.com' using firefox 17.0.6,
i had 3 pages opened and this message popped up;

+++
Excessive Sessions Warning
Error

Your 2701HG-B Gateway has intercepted your web page request to provide you
with this important message. The following devices on your network are using
a large number of simultaneous Internet sessions:

192.168.1.144

The most likely cause of this issue is a ~blaster~ type virus which has
infected the device. It is strongly recommended that the devices above be
scanned for potential viruses.

Note that a large number of sessions may occasionally be the result of
application software or gaming software installed on the device. If you
believe this is the case, click the ~Do not show me excessive session
warnings in the future~ to disable this feature.

To access the requested Web page that was intercepted, please close all
browser windows and then restart your Web browser software.

If you continue to see this page after closing all open Web browser windows,
restart your computer.

[ ] Do not show me excessive session warnings in the future
+++

i have, at previous times, had 8 to 10 pages opened and not received such
a notice.

curious as to what such a virus infected, i looked up 'blaster' at
wikipedia.org to find;

+++
The Blaster Worm (also known as Lovsan, Lovesan or MSBlast) was a computer
worm that spread on computers running the Microsoft operating systems: Windows
XP and Windows 2000, during August 2003.[1]

The worm was first noticed and started spreading on August 11, 2003. The rate
that it spread increased until the number of infections peaked on August 13,
2003. Filtering by ISPs and widespread publicity about the worm curbed the
spread of Blaster.
+++

i contacted bellsouth and the rep insisted that i had a virus that was
causing message.

when i told her that i had doubt that it was a virus, because i run linux
and oos viruses do not effect linux.

she insisted that "viruses have a way of creeping into a system" and that
for $100, i could have an online scan run to check my system.

when i mentioned that notice stated;

  It is strongly recommended that the devices above be scanned for potential
  viruses.

rep insisted that meant my computer and not the dsl modem.

needless to say, if she did not understand what i was trying to explain
to her that i was not using oos, she has little understanding about any
virus problem.

so, have any readers run across above notice or know of any virus that can
enter a linux system to cause such a message to appear?

tia.

-- 

peace out.

in a world with out fences, who needs gates.

sl5.9 linux

tc.hago.

g
.