Fair Software Installation

rossjudson writes: "There's a little war going on in your computer; it's a war that you might be aware of if you're an experienced computer user. If you're new to the game, there's very little chance you know about it, but it affects you, and it gets worse, not better. The battleground in this war is your CPU, your disk space, and your system's stability." He's got a particular beef with NEW.NET, but lays out (in the article below) what he thinks is a workable, generalized code of conduct for software installation.

Fair Software Installation These days, we all download and install software from the Internet. And that software is rarely written entirely by one entity; rather, components are combined to create the programs we want. There is an increasing and disturbing trend to ship components that perform-system level tasks and have system-level effects. These effects are magnified because many of these components are installed without adequate notification to the user (either by omission, or deliberately).

The NEW.NET domain resolution component is a good example. This component is installed by a number of freely downloadable Windows programs on the Internet. Some of those programs notify the user that they are going to install the NEW.NET software; others do not.

Installation of NEW.NET alters the basic functionality of your system: It causes your system to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with international standards. That this is done in a stealthy manner is unacceptable. The fact that NEW.NET is unstable besides is another issue that we will deal with separately.

If I am installing a program that calculates speaker enclosure volumes, I shouldn't have to worry about it redefining my network stack and destabilizing my computer.

What does a reasonable software program or component do? It should perform its defined, published task. It should not consume excessive resources. It should have a defined starting point and defined ending point. If it is defined to be a service, it should publish that fact and indicate the starting mechanism it uses.

Let me draw upon the realm of commercial software for an example of a program that is an offender. Creative's PlayCenter 2 application is used to move music to and from Creative Nomad MP3 players. It can also play media. When you run the PlayCenter application, you get the functionality you expect. When you start examining your system files afterwards, though, the picture changes.

PlayCenter installs a service, a disk detection system, and a news collection daemon. It does not attempt to inform the user that these daemon-level processes are being put in place. It does not offer the option to make them manually-startable. Worse, the news collection daemon would actually chew up all your CPU idle time.

I think creators of software have some basic obligations:

1. Inform users when drivers, services, or daemons are being installed.
2. Allow users to omit any of the above that are not strictly necessary for program operation.
3. Ensure that during uninstallation, system-level components are accurately removed, "leaving no trace."
4. System-level and daemon components must be subject to a higher level of quality control. It is possible that some level of legal liability should be present for the corruption of the system.
5. Transmit no information from a component to any party unless specification notification to the user has taken place, and is renewed on a periodic basis.
6. Collect no information on a user without prior agreement, and a renewal of that agreement on a periodic basis.

There's been a longstanding battle between virus writers and anti-virus software. The equivalent to anti-virus software in the component world is Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. If you haven't run it before and you have a Windows box, get it and run it. The first time can be a real shocker -- tremendous amounts of crap can build up in your system without you knowing about it.

The little war I mentioned earlier is going to get nastier soon. Uninvited components like Cydoor and NEW.NET are sure to take steps to defeat Ad-Aware and programs like it. If I wrote a stealth component today, I would have it seek out an Ad-Aware signature file and modify it to ignore me, or add my directory to the ignore lists. Ad-Aware could respond by digitally signing the files, or with other techniques. This cycle will escalate, with each side taking new steps to ensure its dominance. Users will pay the price in decreasing system stability.

I am hard-pressed to see the difference between NEW.NET and the Sub7 trojan horse. Both subvert a computer for the purposes of others; both do it in stealth. The good folks at NEW.NET will surely disagree; they'll say that those applications that install their software inform the user, and as such, it really isn't their responsibility.

I say it is. NEW.NET makes active use of the component on your computer; I think that they cannot duck their responsibility for its behavior. They are a not passive participants; they are not a library component being used by others.

I've been beating up on NEW.NET quite a bit in this article. I suppose it's because the deinstallation of their component trashed the IP stack on my Windows 2000 system and it took me a half day to put it back together again. What the hell were they thinking when they stuffed a buggy service deep into my IP stack without telling me? I think they should have to compensate me in some way. A $250 Small claims court action here in Virginia might be a way to do it.

The bottom line is, where does it end? Software installation programs should install components that the user expects. Full disclosure should be the order of the day. There will always be violators, though. There are a couple of remedies which could help:

1. A legal framework for "allowable" system modifications during installation can be created. By adhering to the requirements of disclosure and stability, manufacturers can avoid liability. The thread of liability may be required (although capped) to enforce conformance and responsibility.
2. A technical framework in the operating system can establish and protect secure boundaries around the system's core. Certain operating systems already do this (Unix), but the most widespread consumer OS does not.
3. A "signed installation" program, run by known entities, asserting that a given program and its installation don't violate the rules.

These remedies are necessary as the entities creating these components can't be counted on to do the right thing. Their business models are often predicated on the stealthy gathering of knowledge, and the altering of what goes into your computer.

Just think -- what if NEW.NET decided to start redirecting www.bestbuy.com to www.circuitcity.com? Is there a law somewhere or a technical remedy for this situation? I think there should be.

Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features; use the story submission page if you'd like to submit yours.

Comments

Property Questions

[Loundry]

I've long maintained that I do not think that information is property, and I therefore can't agree with things like Intellectual Property laws.

This post raises some interesting thoughts: are my computer's CPU cycles and my system's stability my "property"? Do companies have a right to infringe on those things? Do I have a right to sue if other companies infringe on those things without my explicit permission?

Don't mod me up; I just want to see the discussion that ensues. :)

If Spyware would only follow these rules...

[jjhall]

I installed Kazaa the other day at home, knowing it would attempt to install the BDE3 (I think) viewer. Since my hard drive is NTFS, I created the BDE directory under my second account, and used NTFS permissions to be only readable/writable by the "Administrator" account. I thought that would stop it from installing. I was wrong, however. The program simply installed inside of a different directory.

It doesn't run because I did the same thing to that directory, but it still installed when I took fairly advanced measures to prevent it. The fact that programmers are writing applications that users have no control over is a step in the wrong direction. I don't want the "3D Advertising Projector" on my system, yet it installed anyway. That to me sounds like something Norton should be protecting from...

I do write simple programs for personal use for myself. I have given a few to friends, but I never install a "Jeremy in 3D" viewer or anything like that. Note to programmers: If it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to the operation of the program, go ahead and force installation, but tell the user what it is and why you need it. If it is not essential, simply put a check box to not install it. Or at least instructions on how to safely remove it.

I understand that Kazaa is trying to make some money by forcing ads, but when people won't even install their software because of the ads, they are shooting themselves in the foot. If they used simple HTML banners, I probably wouldn't go to the trouble to block them.

Another thing that annoys me greatly is the Real Player (whatever they are calling this version) notification program. It pops up ads and new version notifications near the systray. There is not an option ANYWHERE I can find to disable that function. They used to have the real icon in the tray that you could close. And they had an option to keep it from loading. How much of my system resources is it taking to check in the background for new updates/ads? There are a few things I need real for (unfortunately) or I would uninstall it and be done with it. If I try to play a stream that won't play with the version I have, I will upgrade on my own. I don't need a resource hog app telling me when to upgrade.

Earthlink and my neighbor's PC

[dpilot]

A while back, my neighbors switched from Earthlink to Adelphia cable. Trying to be a good netizen, I spoke with them about getting a firewall, and set up a time to install Zone Alarm on their machine.

When I went over, they made a side mention about all the stupid popup ads they were getting on Adelphia, how they hadn't gotten them on Earthlink, and Earthlink had promoted, 'No ads with us.' I responded that we didn't get any more than normal popups, on either Linux or Windows.

So we installed Zone Alarm, and started up the cable link, again. First thing we see is a program out of an Earthlink directory attempting to contact the nameserver. Press the 'No', and the popups were gone. Apparently some piece of Earthlink software got in a tiff because the nameserver belonged to another ISP, and decided we needed to be punished.