Pop-Under Deception and Private Property

RogerRamjet98 writes "I was browsing the web today and I got hit with a pop-under ad. Annoying but no big deal, right? Wrong. This one managed to change my home page to (CT:Link removed. Why would we send these dicks traffic?) Which pretends to be yahoo, and is convincing enough to fool the average computer user, but is really a platform for launching more pop-under ads. Combine this with the AOL/WinXP news, and it makes me think that the settings on my computer ought to enjoy legal protection as private property: Changing them without my permission (such as adjusting my home page, or whatnot) should constitute assault or trespass." Or turn of JavaScript. Or don't run IE. But good luck on that trespass case. With a history of laws like the DMCA, Uncle Sam can only make it worse.

Comments

Sure...if you set your Security to "Rape Me"

[JoeShmoe]

I've been to several pages with code that tries to alter my homepage and every time this little IE window pops up with a home icon and says "Such-And-Such is trying to make this your homepage, do you want to proceed? [OK][Cancel]"

This is on IE's Medium security level. On High I'm sure it is even more protective. So can we please be clear about this? Is this new trick able to bypass these kinds of protections? Is this a problem only on Netscape or IE or any JavaScript enable browser?

Keeping in mind that MS wants everyone's homepage to be MSN.com (the first thing IE goes to after installing is a page with code to make MSN your homepage) I can't believe they would allow any website to so easily snatch this setting without user interaction of some kind.

- JoeShmoe