Spyware Makers Resent Cleaned-Up Versions

Tri0de points to a ZDnet artcle on a programmer who's taken it upon himself to release spyware- and adware-free versions of popular file-sharing programs. "'He's done Grokster and iMesh. And he's not alone. His work, now available through the Grokster and iMesh networks themselves, joins that of other programmers who have previously "cleaned" programs such as Kazaa and Audiogalaxy in a campaign against "adware" and "spyware." Is the shoe on the other foot?'"

Comments

Of course! It's their $$

[Jon Howard]

Where's the funding going to come from?

Be VERY wary

[grahamsz]

I'd be very suspicious of 'cleaned' applications floating about on p2p networks.

Whilst it's likely the author had your best interests at heart there's some chance he didn't.

It wouldn't be too hard to build a trojan into one of these, and if it were done well you could have your trojan version of kazaa send requests onto the network that immediately identify to anyone watching that it's an infected copy.

That'd would mean that the trojan wouldn't have to either 'phone home' or be detcted by randomly portscanning subnets.

however this still might be the lesser of two evils.

Re:Be VERY wary

[Jon Howard]

I'm really sorry if this comes across as rude, I certainly don't mean for it to be, especially because I consider you to be extremely correct.

How is this Insightful?! If people don't know not to run untrusted binaries from untrusted sources, we need a serious wake-up call!

Come on people! This should be as obvious as "never pick up random hitchhikers stumbling in an alley in the middle of downtown Shanghai - especialy if they're impeccably dressed!".

Re:Be VERY wary

[gwernol]

How is this Insightful?! If people don't know not to run untrusted binaries from untrusted sources, we need a serious wake-up call!

Come on people! This should be as obvious as...

Well just because its obvious to you does not mean its obvious to everyone. There are lots of people who are just learning to use P2P networks and sites like Slashdot. How are they supposed to learn the "obvious" things if we're not allowed to tell them?

Kazaa et al. are new services themselves. They've only been around for a couple of years, and they've been in the "mainstream" for considerably less time than that. Plenty of people don't work on Internet time, they don't rush out and adopt every new technology within a few days of its launch. And yes, a lot of these people (I'd guess) read Slashdot. Don't forget that the vast majority of Slashdot readers don't post; therefore posters like you and me are highly unrepresentative of readers.

I don't think we're anywhere near the point, even in the Geek community, where we can stop giving out these warnings because they are "obvious". So yes, I think this was an insightful post.

Well whoopdie do

[batobin]

Great. Spyware makers resent cleaned up versions. But guess what? CONSUMERS RESENT SPYWARE!

In my own opinion, spyware makers have no right to complain. Is there something I'm missing?

Re:Well whoopdie do

[nomadic]

In my own opinion, spyware makers have no right to complain. Is there something I'm missing?

They have every right to complain.

We have every right to ignore them.

Re:Well whoopdie do

[mindstrm]

What if I didn't install it? What if I disassembled the installer without going through the clickthrough agreement? At that point, only standard copyright law exists to protect the authors.

The irony is sweet

[Slash Veteran]

P2P networks complaining that their software has been ripped off, and that pirates -- ermm, users -- aren't treating their intellectual property fairly. Har.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How about a version that uploads unreliable data?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would happen if someone were to release a version that created bogus and unreliable information making their data collection unreliable and worthless? The data would have to be indestiguashable from real data or at lease hard to distiguish and yet provide enough noise to make the current collection of data unreliable.

Certainly an interesting concept.

Brand-name damaged

[kindbud]

"They're essentially hackers and rippers," Hemming said. "Basically our brand name is being damaged quite significantly by these activities."

Yeah I can understand that. After all, consumers have associated the Kazaa brand with intrusive spy software. Removing the spyware does great harm the Kazaa brand, which everyone knows and expects to be full of it.

Re:Brand-name damaged

[djmurdoch]

After all, consumers have associated the Kazaa brand (TM) with intrusive spy software. Removing the spyware does great harm the Kazaa brand, which everyone knows and expects to be full of it.

You seem to think that the customers are the users. Wrong. It's the same funding model as broadcast TV: the customers are the advertisers. The users are the product.

Having a significant proportion of Kazaa users avoiding the ads damages its reputation with their customers, who can no longer trust their traffic reports as being surrogates for eyeball counts.

Re:ummm yeah

[miguelitof]

"They're essentially hackers and rippers," Hemming said. "Basically our brand name is being damaged quite significantly by these activities."

Apparently the whole Brilliant fiasco didn't damange their brand name. Nor did getting delisted by Download.com. Nor did being accused of being unethical by most of the major tech news sources in the United States.

The Kazaa brand name apparently came out unscathed by all of this, but just may be damaged by people using Kazaa Lite. Apparently, having a better user experience is going to lessen Kazaa's value in people's minds.

I am sure I am missing something here, but I just don't know what.

now they know how the media companies feel

[jark]

sure is funny how the p2p application owners are whining about protecting their IP and copyright when their software is used, primarily, for the sharing of the same type of material.

now they know exactly how the MPAA and RIAA feel.

Obligatory Opera v. Mozilla comment

[Dave_bsr]

Mozilla is _free_. Opera is free with ads. hmmm. ads? what?

Re:Personally..

[Meowharishi]

If it bothers you so much then why do you use the software? I personally hate popups and spyware so guess what I do? This may shock you: I SEEK OUT ALTERNATIVES!!

egads the humanity!!

Re:my file-sharing flamebait for the day...

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't usually uninstall the spyware.

Brand names

[FattMattP]

This line was classic!

"They're essentially hackers and rippers," Hemming said. "Basically our brand name is being damaged quite significantly by these activities."

LOL! Your brand has already been shot to hell by your deceptive spyware bundling. Someone give this clueless "CEO" a cookie.

brand enhancement

[tonicBastard]

"They're essentially hackers and rippers," Hemming said. "Basically our brand name is being damaged quite significantly by these activities."

if anything, their brand is being enhanced. i for one would never use a piece of software i knew to be spyware...

Re:Of course! It's their $$

[peddrenth]

It's quite unfortunate that they use this as an example of "without the advertising revenue [from spyware], people can't create free software any more"

They're right that "without this spyware advertising revenue, commercial advertisers can't continue giving their commercial software away without charge", but it's quite insulting to see it compared to free software

Re:Ar the "Lite" programs actually ad-free?

[generic-man]

I installed Kazaa Lite recently, having never installed a file sharing program since I got my new hard drive. Although most of the ads have been removed, and I don't see any suspicious processes in the background, Kazaa will randomly pop up a web page on its own. Fortunately, I have Pop-Up Stopper, so the pop-up is closed immediately. :)

So it's not 100% ad-free, but all of the really egregious spyware stuff appears to be gone.

You know

[jgerman]

... regardless of whether or not file sharing is WRONG. It's certainly illegal. Always has been regardless of whether the file is stored on a hard drive or tranferred to a cassette tape or cd. I'm not going to get into a huge debate about the subject, mainly because my opinion on the matter changes from day to day ;)

But I think that, for the most part, that no one will disagree that there are people using p2p networks for the wrong reasons. The spyware makers have absolutely NO RIGHT to complain. Here's a simple analogy: Guy meets girl with boyfriend, guy steals girl, girl cheats on him, he gets upset. I've got one thing to say to the people who write the spyware for kazaa, you want to swin with the sharks prepare to get bitten.

Re:You know

[poot_rootbeer]

... regardless of whether or not file sharing is WRONG. It's certainly illegal.

SURVEY SAYS..... BZZZZT!

Thanks for playing, have some rice.

The act of duplicating a file from one computer to another computer is not illegal, nor will it ever be.

Re:You know

[bigmouth_strikes]

This may be the case in the US for copyright protected material, but certainly not everywhere else.

In Sweden for instance it been upheld in court that copying copyrighted material using P2P clients is legal, for personal use and in small amounts. Sharing, otoh, is illegal but not copying what someone else is sharing.

Re:Of course! It's their $$

[jtdennis]

What most of the /. and *nix community in general tend to forget is that for the rest of the world free software is just that, software they don't pay money for. So for example, while AnalogX's programs are 100% free for me to use, they don't fall under a small minority's definition of "free software" just because it's not open source. Everyone needs to realize that software isn't free because it fits under the GNU "perfect world," It really is "free software" because the end user wasn't charged anything for it and that is not degraded in any way. I would say a good definition of free software is any software that's free to use and has no ads.

Re:Of course! It's their $$

[Broccolist]

Funding for what exactly? The FastTrack network (of which Kazaa is a client), being self-organized, costs very little to run. All they need to set up is a few login servers.

Furthermore, the company that developed the FT tech has, AFAIK, disbanded, and development is over. These guys were pretty bright: in order to avoid a Napster-type fiasco, they decided to just develop the software and make others take the risk of running the servers. Kazaa just licensed the software and is now attempting to milk it for cash.

Frankly, Kazaa is run by a bunch of sleazebags and I wouldn't want to give them money in any case. They've done amazingly unethical things. They're like the anti-Google. There's the obvious: installing of spyware, trying to run a distributed network behind people's backs, and basing their business model on running a piracy network (though this last point is not considered unethical by some).

But the worst is what happened to Morpheus. You may have heard of it: it was a FT client identical to Kazaa in every way (being the same licensed software). Although they tried to keep this under wraps, here is what seems to have happened: Kazaa, wanting to grab ad revenues from Morpheus, released an "upgrade" to Morpheus which had the effect of destroying it. Their trick worked, too.

This is $$$MAKE MONEY FAST$$$ level sleaziness here :). I hope Kazaa dies, and good riddance.

Re:Of course! It's their $$

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

How about charging some nominal yet affordable fee?

I'd gladly pay $1 - $3 to download a utility like Bearshare or Kazaa that is completely spyware free.

How much can the spyware people be paying per download?

I prefer to use Bearshare simply because they give the me the option to opt out of installing the adware... they make you feel guilty about it, but they give you the option.