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Congressional Anti-Spyware Bill Introduced
CRCates writes that U.S. "Senator Conrad Burns has introduced new anti-spyware legislation. The bill would make it difficult to for software to download and install itself without the user's knowledge. The bill would also require notification, consent, and procedures for easy removal."
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I have yet to find any spyware that wasn't easily removed
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There goes all of AOL's profits from Instant Messenger...
Goo goo g'joob.
The bill would also require notification, consent, and procedures for easy removal.
You mean the way they notify you and gain your consent by burying it a dozen pages into the EULA that nobody reads? The way you can uninstall the spyware by reformatting?
Although I hate spyware as much as the next person, I am not so sure that the government should control it. The problem I see with the above is that it defines spyware more by the distribution method then the purpose.
I can definetely see a purpose for software to download updates, patches, etc automatically. Privacy concerns is what spyware is really about.
Off-topic, I admit, but there seem to be 2 more comments than are displayed here in this story. Where'd they go?
Spyware is a scourge, but how likely is it that this kind of weak-willed legislation will make spyware any better? Not likely, IMO. Not to mention that the law puts a muzzle on the 'free speech' of spyware authors, this law will probably go down in flames like all other anti-spam measures.
I have been pwned because my
Most spyware actually informs users somewhere in the very long license agreement, and would not be affected by this.
Completely criminal spyware - installed completely without the user's knowledge (such as that found on some discs claiming to be music CDs) is already illegal.
This is just a 'feel-good' measure which will not actually change anything; at least the intent, unlike CAN-SPAM, wasn't evil here.
Or was this just covered last night?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
things are not going to change for the average /. user, but things are going to change for the better for the average user. Now, gator can't legally annoy the hell out of the average joe using his computer. I'd say that is a change for the better.
(a) NOTICE, CHOICE, AND UNINSTALL PROCEDURES- It is unlawful for any person who is not the user of a protected computer to install computer software on that computer, or to authorize, permit, or cause the installation of computer software on that computer, unless--
(1) the user of the computer has received notice that satisfies the requirements of section 3;
(2) the user of the computer has granted consent that satisfies the requirements of section 3; and
(3) the computer software's uninstall procedures satisfy the requirements of section 3.
Did anyone else notice that there is no exception in here for law enforcement agencies? In other words, bye-bye big brother spyware!
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Hey, I use windows xp. I know that this particular O/S isn't that popular on this site. Downloaded several programs that were designed to stop spyware and lo and behold it did eradicate the spyware on the pc and place their on spyware in place of the deleted program. Browsers would not refresh as fast. I use several and a host of other strange maladies occured. Looks like everyone is going to have to write their own software next.
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Is it me or does the government only care about normal internet gripes and complaints when one of their own has a problem with their computer. Spam a government official, they don't like spam they decide to pass a law and throw you in jail. Buy a domain point it to where you want it to go, they don't like where you pointed it they pass a law and throw you in jail. Now they had software installed on one of their systems and they want to pass a law and throw someone in jail. Next thing you know they are going to pass a law saying if you talk bad about a government official on a web page they are going to demit illegal then send the FBI to take the web servers it was on find out who all viewed the web site and throw them in jail.
You can also load spyware via drivers. Those are more difficult to root out.
Do the ActiveX controls that ask Y/N in IE count?
I use mozilla so that hardly bothers me, but a lot of people just assume that if a link (see AIM virii/trojans/"games" and the like) is sent to them, that the warning is part of the game?
Most activeX controls say 'I'd like to install something now...' and people just assume yes as the correct answer... They _do_ give consent, even if its kinda foolish to do so.
-- (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
One unfortunate consequence of this talk of "user granting consent" takes us closer to the position that the act of clicking OK on a EULA can somehow be binding on the person.
As far as I'm concerned I should always be able to click anything on my own computer without thereby entering into a contract with some company such as Microsoft. Ugh.
Now the lawyers will be debating the definition of spyware all the way to the Supreme Court over the next 10 years, tied in tangles of litigious obfuscation, destined to hedious ruin.
What a stupid waste of society's resources.
Open the source -- problem solved.
"The bill would make it difficult to for software to download and install itself without the user's knowledge."
I could have sworn it was already illegal. Making it "difficult" would be a step down.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
This will have absolutely no effect. The US political system is too corrupt for these kind of laws to end up functional. Gator and their fellow trash just need to donate enough money for the coming election and the new law will be watered out to have no effect.
They are stifling American companies from competing with Eastern European credit card stealing business. We'll just end up with shadier spyware.
As I see it, and I have removed over a million pieces of spyware from my customer's computers...
The trouble with spyware is:
1. It's damn sneaky. No indication other then a license agreement that no one reads because it's all legalease and effectively gibberish to the average person.
2. Some spyware is loading onto computers via popup advertisements that are using obvious MSIE flaws to allow it to install. Most of the spyware changes your homepage to their search page which also happens to re-install their software. This means they are using virus/trojan techniques to invade your system.
3. Most spyware will re-install or auto update itself if you try to remove it and miss a portion. Some spyware appears to team up with other spyware packages that reload each other.
4. Several spyware companies actually advertise anti-spyware software that just loads more spyware onto a system.
5. The security in Windows is horrible. Looks like we might have to resort to a signing method for all approved software and allow only company approved signatures to install. I don't think Windows fully allows this for everything. I know they do it for drivers but it should be available for all software.
Spyware is begining to be a real problem in enterprise environments, we locked down our WinXP computers pretty tight and yet the spyware still manages to get installed. It takes hours to remove spyware from a user's machine. In some cases, when Ad-Aware and SpyBot both failed to remove a package, we ended up having to rebuild the OS and restore the user's data.
Windows is so very broken that I don't think it can ever be fixed. No law will make a difference, companies will just move off shore and then still deliver the spyware goods.
The only sure fire way I see Windows getting repaired is if Microsoft bites the bullet and stops development on Longhorn and then literally starts over. They should make a FreeBSD base and build the Windows API into the system. This will ensure multiple user abilities and more importantly, security. Of course this will break all old software that requires drive letters and other things that will have changed but it's becoming necessary. The holy grail for MS is backwards compatibility and it's also a curse they will never give up.
I know, Apple did the same thing with OS X. It's a custom Mach kernel with a FreeBSD foundation. They build a backwards compatible Classic environment as well as a porting environment called Carbon in addition to the NeXTStep Cocoa NS API. The security is there and you are prompted to install software whenever an application tries to install. If it installs in your user home directory structure, you may not be prompted, but at least you will be able to rebuild the user account and migrate your data.
Microsoft needs to follow suit. Of course they should do it their own way but they really need to focus on security as well as separating the OS from the Applications and System wide software from individual user software as well as user settings from system settings. The trouble is Windows has always had a hard time isolating things because of the backwards compatibility issues. WinXP moved the user profiles to Documents and Settings but it needs to be better isolated across everything everywhere. All the security issues come down to a serious flaw in design which directly stems from the Win3.x and the strong desire to keep old software running on new systems. Windows systems are wide open out of the box. Most good Unix distributions are closed out of the box. i.e. in Unix you need to turn things on. In Windows you need to turn things off. This makes a heck of a lot harder to lock down.
I have had spyware that was damm hard to remove. It was one of those "browser hijackers" that would direct to one of those sites that sell domain names. A spyware removal program found it but couldn't remove it. This was because it became part of the windows 98 operating system and any attempt to delete the file from the directory or the windows registry would give a "file in use" error. I ended up having to boot the computer in DOS mode and delete the file then reboot in windows.
If one posits the users' systems are insecure because the OS can't protect itself. The legislation is *good* because it will prepetuate insecure systems by keeping them alive.
Personally, I'm against anti-virus software.
Of course, I never attach to the net either. This message was tied to a brick.
You could, of course, use two bricks. Oh, you do use two bricks!
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
I've never had any problems with spyware... :)
I guess the target environment is not linux
Less look fast, more go fast.