It's been many, many years since I worked in computer security and I'm not abreast of all the developments. But I constantly read that "denial of service" attacks are one of the main tools of attacks by hackers with an agenda, as opposed to those who simply enjoy the challenge of getting into your computer and leaving evidence to prove it.
What you're describing is a quintessential "denial of service." I would not be as concerned with looking for other people who have reported the identical symptom as I would be with fixing the problem.
Besides, you've actually found one other person with the same symptoms. How many more do you need? Perhaps you two have the only configurations that were unlucky enough to allow this particular Trojan to function successfully. You and the hundreds of people who didn't write in because they don't believe in helping the community.
Many denial-of-service attacks fail to accomplish their mission because the shutdown routine displays a window asking the user to confirm the shutdown request. I frequently get windows popping up on my laptop screen asking me to confirm "my request" to log off the internet, which thwart that particular Trojan horse until Norton catches up with it and deletes it.
I agree that your logon could be compromised. Still, there is a code signature in the modification that Norton or any other AV software will recognize and find and restore. If you have a way to start your computer in DOS mode without going into Windows, you might be able to run a virus scan under DOS. Otherwise -- whatever your problem turns out to be -- I still think the obvious and only way to investigate your problem is to have another computer examine your hard drive as an external drive.
