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McAfee lists Adware in Top 10 Viruses
joelethan writes "In the new sensitive, caring world of Windows security McAfee Virusscan detects adware/malware, just like its competitors. A surprising consequence is that the McAfee's Regional Virus Info now regularly shows adware in its infection top ten. It feels so good to see old favorites like 180Search and DFC listed. "Now for your listening pleasure it's Adware.Gator at number 7 with a bullet..."
"
ADWare is actually a secret conspiracy from the guys who make tums to capture a whole new generation of geeks..
Geek: "Helpdesk, how can I help you?"
Hapless Worker Drone: "I have all these funny ads that keep popping up!"
Geek: "Did you install that nifty new weather bug, or that 'Gator' thing?"
Hapless Worker Drone: "I didn't install anything! This is your fault! You guys are supposed to protect us!"
Geek: "See that socket over there? It's the automatic anti human virus protecter, stick your finger in and call me in an hour"
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
.. is Adware to be made totally illegal as to design, manufacture and spread it. Like viruses are.
-el
Uh-oh! They'll get sued by Claria!
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
1) Switch to better web browser that dosen't have activeX spyware infecting it
2)Destroy spyware
3)Switch to a secure operating system.
4) ???
5) Profit, by not having to waste time with viruses!
However, Netsky still completely wipes the floor with the adware. Over 10 times as many instances of Netsky were discovered than Gator.
liqbase
But when will the financial geniuses at Symantec decide to start exacting a "fee" to spyware vendors to remove their malware from the list????
Because there are still people who don't know:
Ad-Aware
Search & Destroy
To keep your pc running fast and without too many crashes..
Are you retarded? It's easy to keep a Windows machine clear of Adware. You just don't do stupid crap like install Gator. If you're capable of handling a non-Windows machine (Macs excluded) you should be more than able to not do stupid stuff to your computer.
I have just upgraded to Enterprise 8.0i at work to test it out and I am very impressed with it. Good scanning times as well as some handy features like Buffer Over Flow protection. McAfee may have crappy home user products but the corporate stuff is top stuff!
rather one of my users have a current-day virus than a malware product anyway! Virii don't invite all their little friends to come and play like malware does either or slow the box down to uber crawl speeds!
ADWARE OWNZ JOO!!
this is the reason why i dont use windows.. one minute after your installation is done, you already got lots of spyware.
Not every computer related problem has Microsoft to blame. Though it is tempting to blame them...
No? What about people borrowing my computer? One click away and a lot of spyware is installed. What about i forget to pull the networkconnection before i start a fresh windows installation. Etc. You dont have to be retarded to get spyware. To avoid them you need to regulary run windowsupdate and run scan with software like Ad-Aware.
..let's stick to some realism. I don't have any spyware on my Windows machine. Unlike viruses, the user has to actually install them (though that may involve just clicking "yes" in IE). Poor judgement can not be solved by technical solutions, OSS or not.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's not spyware, it's a virus! McAfee says so.
I dont blame them on microsoft. I never said that. But spyware and virus problem is there, you cant deny that..
Why the hell would you run your computer as an Administrator?
Simply create another few accounts without high privs and use those for you and your friends who borrow your computer.
Do you run everything as root on unix style systems?
Same thing.
Spyware cant do much that deleting and re-creating a "user" account cant fix.
..it was recognised for what it is. Here, in the UK, such software falls foul of the Computer Misuse Act (which is due for an update). Personally, I already spend far too much time removing Adware, Spyware, BHOs, et cetera from Windows machines, especially at one site, where they seem to actually think CoolWebSearch really is cool.
This is a good move, currently I'm helping my mom's next door neighbor trouble shoot her Dell...1000 miles away! My mom has dial up, but her computer is just chocked by viruii and adware. She's new to the internet, so she thinks if she just does whatever she'll be ok.
Also, the McAfee trial she was using didn't catch much, I suppose she didn't have updated pattens, but with a dial up, is it possible/easy to get updates?
I'm leaning on her to get Broadband, and then let me put Linux on that Dell...
CB_)EW____>>>
free ipod and free gmail!
Yeah. But its still just working around the problem.
...I think you're preaching to the choir. If we're going to make a difference, it would be "Force a (l)user to use these:"
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
While not exactly *required* as AdAware and SpyBot are it is certainly a nice addition to the list.
SpywareBlaster
I would have posted AC to avoid the karmawhoring but Slashdot isn't allowing my subnet to post anonymously anymore. So blame them for the "Continual Karmawhoring".
The way Gator tries to install is absolutely unacceptable. I really think that it should be stopped, one way or another.
Claria sounds like some sexual desease.
I dont blame them on microsoft. I never said that. But spyware and virus problem is there, you cant deny that..
Only if you don't know what you are doing. I've been running XP for two years, and not one virus, or spyware, and pretty minimal effort on my part.
The problem is there, no denying, but the solution is way. What is more, it isn't windows specific anyway. Keeping your machine in order and secure is something you should be doing on any OS.
Clearly I'm the only one who read this as Ad*A*ware and thought McAfee was listing competition as a virus.
Considering there is zero spyware for Macs or Linux... you're damn right I'm going to blame Microsoft.
is people who can't turn 'virus' into a plural properly.
Viruses, Viruses, VIRUSES!
Magic Lantern, carnivore, omnivore...
So how do you keep the feds from snooping you?
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Unless, of course, you do it properly. But complaining is so much easier, eh?
My, I'm really turning into one of those bitter old posters who just goes around smacking down teenagers
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Actually, this used to be a valid point. But with XPSP2, IE is configured to disable ActiveX installations (but allows the user to run them, if so inclined).
I support LOTS of PCs on the side and this has eliminated 99 percent of the adware/spyware related issues. If people are no longer prompted with a "yes/no" type choice, then there is no problem.
Kudos to Microsloth on this one.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Just rip out IE and stuck mozilla on and you shouldn't get any spypware. Might also want to whack on some Sygate firewall to keep away the other nasties aswell.
...Other than malware/Adware starts with a team of lawyers on staff, where as virus writers don't get a lawyer until after they are busted.
And while most malware may not be self replicating, it does have viral components in that it is predatory non-living creature that lives off its host. And good malware, like a good virus goes undetected. Cheating the system of confidentiality and resources. Sending it's host to places that suit it, and exploit the host.
Does it really matter that they aren't totally self replicating like a worm... early viruses were just malicious macros using MS Office and WP as a vector to be passed around by unsuspecting knobs.
A lot of smart viruses use their host to infect others. HIV, for example isn't very good at replicating itself... it relies on humans to do most of the work. It just sits in the blood stream. Other viruses use multiple species to get passed around where some species are adversly effected and other species in the chain don't even notice it's benign precence.
Similarly, code like Roings or Gator, are a great malware/virus hybrid. They just sit around and wait to be downloaded from from blog sites like Xanga or P2P networks like Kazaa... it uses other users to actually recommend to their friends to get the infection. Now that is using relational marketing!
Why bother writing self replicating code when you can get guillable fools to do the replicating for you.
As far as spyware for linux, I suspect it is out there. My browser (mozilla) has been hijacked a few times, I haven't figured out how. Has anyone else experienced this? I am not trying to start a flame war, I know I probably have something missing or misconfigured, but how... I don't know.
Yeah. But its still just working around the problem.
That isn't a workaround, that is basic security that you would use on any multi-user OS.
sorry here is the clickable http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=83240&cid=7286 358
I've been saying for a while now that we just need the anti-virus software publishers to recognize adware and its heathenous kin as being in the same category as Code Red or Klez for the public to start taking it more seriously. It's actually more of a threat now than just plain old "viruses" (in most everyday cases, anyway).
I got hit by ads234 or also called midADDdle ... It is a VIRUS, spybot adaware even hijack had problems removing it. It had 4 copies running and when you deleted one file it reinstalled all 4 changing the names. It even had a few process in the backgound checking to make sure it was all there running. I had to ripe the whole system apart to fix it. I never aproved or wanted it but man removing it was harder than getting rid of the stoned monkey virus.
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
Soon, if they're the geniuses you say they are - before anyone realises the list is run by their competitors - McAfee! :)
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Could companies be prosecuted for exploiting bugs and vulnerabilities to install their garbage on people's machines? I don't know how many reinstalls I've went through, forgot to turn off the fifteen different settings in IE, and ended up with webpages spamming my desktop and taskbar as hard as they could by going to a seemingly harmless website, or mistyping the name of a popular website.
I recently fixed someone's computer that had so much spyware, it was running like a 66MHz machine on Windows 98SE. They were using a 2.5GHz with 512MB of RAM. The start button would take three seconds of griding to hit, and hitting it made three or four spam windows pop up, mostly about gambling, porn, or pills.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Minimal effort?
MS caters to the masses.....to the people who don't change their own oil. The average users buys a computer to surf. They get windows for ease of use. Windows has, like it or not, as a central feature IE. To ask a user to follow the 6 steps you have outlined is taking away from that ease of use.
Not use one of the central features? Use a firewall and have to figure out once a month why something can't connect? Add the 3 maintenance scans you suggest (updates, anti virus, spyware) and the intimidated user is bowled over.
Considering there is zero spyware for Macs or Linux... you're damn right I'm going to blame Microsoft.
Damit, this thread is turning me into an MS apologist. How, exactly, are MS responsible for the spyware? There isn't a single thing about Macs or Linux that prevents someone writing spyware for it, or bundling it with other programs.
It really is just a matter of them not being worth targeting. Probably part market share, and part Mac and Linux users often being more savy and careful what they put on their box.
Now, if you want to blame MS for some dodgy browser code that lets sites slip spyware onto the machine without them knowing, that is fair. But blaming MS for the mere existance of spyware on Windows is just silly.
From what I've heard, some of the Virus scanners out there, like Norton, will detect but not remove AdWare. So, the question here is, will McAffe actually remove it, or does it just detect it. Plain old detection is useless. That's like a virus scanner popping up and saying "HEY STUPID! You have a virus but guess what, I don't feel like doing anything about it. I would just like to inform you of you gross incompetence."
"Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff." -- by an Unknown Wise man.
I'm just throwing this out here in a weak attempt to avoid RTFM...but is there a top ten list of viruses or spyware for Linux?
I've only been using Gentoo for about 2 months now and have been for the most part naive about looking further into security; firewalls; and virus scanners for Linux; my easy breezy KDE; and Gentoo in specific.
Some aim to please, I aim to tease.
Symantec NAV certainly doesn't detect any Adware/Malware/SPYWARE. That would be their biggest competitor in the anti-virus market, after all.
Oh, so you don't mind Alexa then ?
It is automatically installed on every never version of IE and it gets reinstalled every time you get an update to IE...
I tend to kill it every time but it seems you do not mind...
Gator beats any virus in infestation rate if you look at the more relevant statistics.
Lalala
And also just to clarify that Adaware is NOT available at http://www.adaware.com/
http://www.adaware.com/ is actually a Ada software site who is taking advantage of their name to sell spyassasin. Kind of underhanded as it doesn't SAY it is spyassasin.
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
I really, really, want to open "pamanderson.exe" and "AllWindowsCrackz.exe"
So is running Windowsupdate and Ad-Aware. Any method you can take to secure your computer against crap like that is a "workaround" - it'll work until the next time the user decides they want to download a pack of 1400 emoticons for their Incredimail program.
If you click on the link in the top 10, you'll come here. What's up with "Find Joke Programs?" That seems a little too specific to be real.
[obligatory remark] You must be new here [/obligatory remark]
I agree with you though ;)
I wonder how much money McAfee spent in legal advice before doing this... I wonder how long before the spyware vendors sue, saying that their software performs a valuable service, as shown by the fact that users deliberately and knowingly install it...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If you want to keep a windows machine clear of adware, don't use the internet. Most all of this stuff installs using holes in internet explorere which allow remote execution. Using firefox in most cases will eliminate this problem.
Got Code?
Joe Six-Pack is finally getting a sense for these things, which is a great step. I recently started working for a net marketing company, and I'm amazed by the volume of flaming emails we get from people across the country saying that they will take us to court when they find the single cookie we put on their machine. There is also a lot of talk of pushing their congressmen to make our 'spyware' actions illegal.
I love this. It would be nice if people were more educated on this (and knew the difference between a viral program and an inert string of text that they have set their browser to allow), but it's a huge start. Detecting these programs as viruses is wonderful - it raises awareness levels. And the first step to legislation is enough people telling their congressmen. Remember, a phone call or letter is worth hundreds of constituient votes.
Four years ago when I first came across Gator, I considered taking apart their offices with a bat and a black ski mask. But I lived on the wrong coast. Now I might finally see them go to jail some day, and their cell mates will do far worse things to some scrawny coders than I ever could. But that will only happen if you contact your congresscritter. So do it.
As long as you never re-install. I just had my motherboard replaced, and the guy left a fresh Windows install on there. Up until that point, I hadn't had any virii/spyware. Within 15 minutes of connecting to the internet it was full of them. And I had to remove them all by hand since my connection couldn't get virus updates.
There only has to be a problem once. Make one mistake on the internet, and then learn to love registry editor.
What exactly does Alexa do? I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I haven't seen a lot of reasons as to why it's bad either.
VirusScan is the worst piece of shit software I've ever been forced (by I.T.) to install. Its scans pin the CPU and make it impossible to work. I've disabled it, on the theory that any virus I get as a result can't be any worse than the McAfee program itself.
seriously, I wonder how long it is before they sue mcafee and others, just because of this point they want to make. Not that anyone will believe them.
I actually came across one that had an unistall utility, complete with a massive EULA for this uninstaller, and a license key for the uninstaller, which is emailed to you, if you decide to actuaslly trust them (description here, with company info) It's blackmail, of course, and probably not enforcable.
Legitiamte businessmen indeed.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
and of course, this could never happen under another operating system...
- My sysadmin just sent a note saying sp2 will break our applications and not to upgrade
- We have several application that are IE only. MS drones convinced our clueless IT department to use all the nifty bells and whistles, even though they were never needded.
- A firewall only protects from unrequested outside attacks. the purpose is to seperate you from the internet, which is not always what the user wishes to do.
- Due to the MS security model, windows machines are extremely easy to infect and there is little hope of protected the system files from attack. This is complicated by the fact that thousands of machines can be infected before and update, advisory, or patch is released. Not all viruses can be removed without damage.
- Spyware is the least of anyones problem. This is largely an enduser problem. This is one case where any suffiently popular OS is going to be equally targeted.
- There is often little choice. Until recently MS would autoload all sorts of crap. The user now generally has to manually click the file, but there is often no way to know if something is safe. The issue is the mixing and matching of data,presentation, system tasks, and userland.
So, while the user has a lot of the blame, mostly in choosing MS, it is the MS philoshophy that leads to most of the problems. On a machine that is not often used, say one every couple days, the first 10 minutes of every sesion can be spent updating. The MS only solution has not been viable for years, but MS sales is still pushing the solution on unsuspecting IT staff.MS machines are marketed to those who do not know what they are doing. In fact the TCO calculations often depend on the fact that they can be administered by semi skilled laborors reather that qualified technicians.
On other thing. XP may be much better at security. But in the real world not everyone can use the latest thing. For instance I still have a Win98 box running.the money and time and opportunity costs are just too great to upgrade. Win98 should have had most of the security features of XP, if MS has been trying to create a customer centered product instead of enforcing a monopoly.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My interest in submitting the story was the sheer number of geek-hours I've had to spend fixing Ordinary Joe's PC.
/JE
Someone told Joe how good Morpheous was. He installed it. I helped fix it. I put on 40 gray hairs.
Now, Adware like CoolWebSearch (retch! retch!) has become so resistant to removal that I have spent hours disinfecting machines.
Now "as any fule kno" Windows is not the most secure OS, and you really shouldn't install these adware-carriers. However it is as true as ever that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Trust me - no spyware included in this comment.
Is faster than Spyware removal tech.
An instance on a system I was removing spyware from was so infested that no matter what I did I could not remove it. Adaware/Spybot could not remove it. The user in question happened to frequent weatherbug et. al so had the latest and greatest spyware. Now in my situation our upline is blocking spyware sites as they find them.
What ended up happening is, our busy spyware installer guy put found a site that wasn't blocked and installed the latest and greatest. Soon thereafter his browser stopped taking him anywhere. Our upline was blocking all requests his browser made because they were all being superceded by the spyware address.
I download all of the newest updates, nada. I speculate that it may be a newer spyware/adware infecting his system and offer him a reimaging of his station, or waiting a day to see if there is a fix. One day goes by, no fix. I spare his system out and give him a replacement while I image his old one. Well the system sits for a while, and eventually I get back to it (4 days after the initial problem.) I figure, hell I'll run Adaware again. Update...scan... remove... reboot... scan...remove... and finally the spyware is removed.
The moral of this story is use Firefox.
I figured you guys would love this...
The firm i worked at up until recently decided to do some "sponsored marketing" thru Claria/Gator. I tried to preach their evils to the marketing department, but my protesting fell on deaf ears. A few weeks later, one of the marketing folks called me into his office because he was having terrible troubles with I.E. Turns out, as expected his lappie was riddled with spyware, w/ Gator/Claria products being the chief offender. When he asked what the major problem was, and I showed him the ad-aware, hijack this, and spybot entries w/ gator/claria all over them - i think he finally realized. The initial short term advertising contract wasn't renewed, or so i hear.
If more comapnies knew how bad these apps are, and what problems they created, maybe they wouldn't want their services and products advertised in this manner.
the "no shit" category. Considering 90% of all my repairs are viruses/adware. This has been a problem for longer than what mcafee says. And I hate to say it, Gator isn't that far up the list WinTools is the worst I've seen considering it's been on 9 out of 10 machines that have come in my shop in the past 6 months.
I might also add, McAfee is crap. From failing to tell the user the subscription has expired, to not being able to make their own software packages work together (I've seen the anti-spam and anti-virus butt head so badly that it won't allow you to download mail, and don't get me started on their firewall), all the way to their software causing a system to no longer boot after an update.
suggestion: If you value your sanity, don't use McAfee and don't recommend it to users that ask you what you recommend. It will damage your rep, and add to your workload when you have to explain.....alot. This is coming from someone who was a loyal McAfee user for 8 years until 3 years ago.
there is a simple solution to all the worlds software problems... use linux... nuff said...
I eventually gave up. Despite being security concious and priding myself on having a clean PC I still got infected with the CoolWebSearch hijacker. That was running AVG / ZoneAlarm, the latest patches, and IE security settings on high, and all unnecessary services disabled I ditched IE for Firefox about 4 months ago. Haven't had a single piece of spyware since. Now I'm ditching W*ndows for linux!
It really is minimal effort. Windows update and AV update can all happen automatically, or ask you when they want to run and what they want to download. As the thread topic says, AVs now cover spyware.
I really don't see autmated tasks running in the background much effort, or bowling over users who don't actually have to do anything. As for firewalls, computers coming with XP SP2 will have them on, and most are friendly enough, saying something like "This program X has tried to access the internet, do you want to allow it?"
As for IE as a central feature, no. Browsing the web, definately, but once you install Opera or Mozilla or something it is just as easy, just a different program pops up.
It is the setting up that requires a little knowldege, once done If PCs came configured with this stuff most users would never notice. It's the first step that is hard.
Maybe machines without AV and firewalls should have big red warning stickers, something like "WARNING THIS MACHINE IS NOT INTERNET SAFE. TALK TO YOUR VENDOR" or have Windows bug you if you try to connnect to interet.
Not that MS doesn't have loads to do in improving their software security, but people do seem to get carried away with how hard it is to keep secure.
One by one:
* Keep windows up to date with auto update
No way! I instantly disable that feature. Microsoft or not I do not like software installed on my system without my will. And cheap broadband is not universally available on the globe.
* Use something other than IE and Outlook/OE
Yes, not that alternative mailer won't let you run that attachment but at least chances are that it won't use your message base / address book for spreading.
* Use a firewall
Absolutely. Don't plug the cable until you have it on.
* Use anti virus and have it auto update
Iffy. Resident AVs do more harm (oh, when people have two of them at once, fun!) and auto-updates are tricky for dialup users.
* Run scans with some anti-spyware software now and then (although I've never caught anything I wanted removed). It looks like this will soon get absorbed by AV software.
Also check your autoruns: services and the other 101 places that MSWin provides for that.
* Don't run dodgy executables, office documents and the like
Oh do as I do: install a sandbox in VMWare. Make a snapshot, run the shit, revert. Pity that VMWare is a tad pricey for general usage.
I think it is a "find pages like this one" plugin, that also phones home about where you surf.
I also think the parent is getting carried away, becuase I always keep IE up to date, and I've never had Alexa on my machine.
Adware is the name of a company in Louisville Kentucky who does a good job providing accounting services to the advertising and public relations industry
Can we use "scum-ware" instead? I've worked with the guys at Adware the company and they're nice people.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Look at the bright side-- now Gator doesn't have to do marketing or polling research to see how installed/popular their product is!
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
But does McAfee do anything effective with them? How about McAfee Corporate (good) vs. the home user version (ukkkk!)?
The latest Norton (2004) detectes malware, but doesn't seem to do anything effective about it.
The best prevention is good surfing habits, and giving most Windows users no rights at all to install stuff.
Usually if someone has new.net, or anotehr TCP/IP stack dropin, and you remove it using spybot, adaware, etc, instead of Add/Remove programs, you have to completely rebuild the TCP stack.
Possibly newer versions of ad aware do this for you?
Jay | http://oldos.org
/.
Two products we have fully implemented that have helpded (no Mandrake/Firefox comments please heh)
1. Trend Micro Office Scan 6.5 (new version) It caught all the Trojans and malware, left most of the adware
2. Spysweeper Enterprise - This put the -smack- down on every little piece of adware and malware...very impressive.
If you are stuck with M$ this will help alot - both products are centrally managed and controlled...I dont work for either, but you can get on top of the virus/malware pain. We had some users w/ 1000+ malware just from add sites, they werent even hitting the porn/hacking stuff.
Enjoy
When is somebody going to step up to the plate and sue these companies for defacing personal property? They get away with it every day and there are laws against it. Plain and simple they are destroying people's property without their permission, at least not any signatures that would hold up in court. All it will take is for one company to sue these companies, and others will follow...at least our company will!
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
Does any one knowthe url to get the trial version of mcafee?
i tried thru their site,but they dont seem to hav that for dload.
Tx for mod ing me offtopic.
Why does yahoo do this
The exploit hits are not from unpatched machines, but rather from people visiting infected websites. If you visit an infected website, the antivirus in your machines detects it, and sends a hit to the McAfee counter.
The problem with Adware/Spyware/whatever isn't so much the invasion of privacy part. After all, in most cases, you did click accept at some point. That's what happens when you need your pr0nzor or bikini calendar so much that you don't care where it comes from, you deserve it. The problem is the lousy implimentation of the invasion of privacy.
I helped a friend diagnose his constantly crashing computer remotely one time and found that he had over 18,000 individual copies of some type of CoolWeb in his Windows\System folder.
The real problem isn't with New.net hijacking and sending people to other domains; the real problem is when their software breaks and you can't use any TCP/IP related applications until you find someone with some technical know-how to fix it.
These bastards should be liable for this sort of thing. Actually, they probably are.
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
As an American geek, I take great offense to that comment. As a matter of fact, I'm on a contract right now that includes three H1-B programmers from India, who, while faster coders than I am, marvel at my problem solving skills.
I lengthy discussion about the difference in our styles turned up that Indians are taught based on memorization, while Americans are taught based on problem solving.
So go ask those other programmers on my contract whether or not American geeks suck at IT jobs.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I assume Mcafee most likely added this feature because of Norton. It looks like antivirus software attempting to detect much more than viruses. Maybe they could clean out those evil cookies from this website. ;)
kidding right? take your average pc-savvy kid without enough allowance. he downloads using emule, finds out he needs a patch, rendering the crack delivered with the iso's useless, hops over to astalavista, finds a "crack" and voila, there ya go. Besides, just using a badly patched IE is more than sufficient to get infested right up to your ears... ...hold on a second... ...you're a troll right?... ...oh what the heck, it's friday afternoon, if me biting makes you happy, so be it...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
I lengthy discussion about the difference in our styles turned up that Indians are taught based on memorization, while Americans are taught based on problem solving.
Richard P. Feynman has two biographies. In one of them he talks about how in his time in Brazil, all but two of the students were essentially taught this way. Of the two that weren't, one was self-taught and the other wasn't taught in that country. So, it's not just India that is like that.
Learn how to Learn and how to Think, not how to memmorize and repeat what you are told.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Ya right....so few hardcores....do you kow what a rootkit is...ya can by a cd loaded with a starter kit for 9.95 because g4techtv did a special on rootkits....tell ya what...you show me a computer that does not plug into the internet...and i will show you a adware free computer!!!
it also depends what your definition of adware/spyware is!!!
Mcafee is starting to mark adware/spyware as viruses.
Great!
Now make an AV app that effectively removes them when it's detected.
Right now, not one virus scanner cleans adware/spyware effectively. You always need to use either spybot or adaware to get rid of it for good. The reason for this is simply because every antivirus firm uses scanning techniques dated from the DOS era to scan and remove this stuff.
If you work for symantec, or mcafee, or any other AV firm for that matter, pleast drill it in your AV scanning division that the Windows Registry Must be scanned for viruses/adware/spyware entries First then all the files on the system. Then once it's found, remove all traces of it including folders, leftover installer files and temp files. I've seen spyware and adware that is just about impossible to remove unless you scour the entire registry for any possible method of entry, then scour the drive for installers that will reinstall it if it's removed. That is why adaware and spybot are so effective at removing this stuff. it removes it from executing and gets it all on the next restart.
Lavasoft Ad-aware is better at removing even some common viruses than most virus scanners today. It's almost second nature that you have to get a "Virus Cleaner" to remove viruses for some AV scanners that adaware removes on the first try.
Until AV firms understand that the registry is just as important to scan as the files, they will never be effective in removing these threats. Dont think that Virus writers aren't looking at these techniques these spyware groups are using to get around you guys and aren't implementing these techniques in their next virus.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
As for firewalls, computers coming with XP SP2 will have them on, and most are friendly enough, saying something like "This program X has tried to access the internet, do you want to allow it?"
From what I've read, the firewall in XP only blocks certain types of *inbound* traffic, not programs on your machine trying to phone home. This is not surprising, as Word seems to try to access the net everytime I use it.
Your best first line of defense is not allowing users Administrator access for day to day use. My 12 year old daughter managed to hose her user account, with all the protections you mentioned. However, the rest of the computer was fine.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Though, i'll admit that something got on my XP machine the other week and replaced my winsock.dll causing my network access to not work except bringing in popups - Totally disabling my machine.. Nothing out there found it..I had to get a WinsockXP reinstaller from Microsoft that seemed to fix it for now.
When will everyone just admit the problem is with Microsoft's swiss cheese OS and monopoly developer policies!
I think that its only a matter of time before a big Forute 500 gets slammed by a nasty trojan or driveby install and they let loose the wrath of their legal team on Microsoft.
If Microsoft continues to give away, developer, developer, developer packages to virtually anyone then every Windows users can continue to expect this kind of activity.
Its wrong, it sucks but hey... ain't that America!?
Maybe someone should implement a useful color coded warning system that citizens can use as a simple guide to the level of threats they can expect on their computers... oh wait thats already been proven to be a HUGE waste of time! Damn it all anyway!
The abusive, obtuse, and broad EULA's that people click on without reading make it extremely difficult to deal with these companies. Here is one great way we should consider.
1)Make a copy of their agreement, and replace "The cool thing we say we do" with "Free pizza for the office"
2)Replace "We get to infest your machine with junk" with "We get to tar and feather you and put pictures on the internet"
3)Get together a bunch of cheese pizzas and head to their office. Get them to sign the modified agreement for delivery.
4) Proceed to tar and feather the person that signed for the pizza, and share the fantastic photos on the internet.
Remember, it's not assault, it's marketing they agreed to in the license. The beauty of it is that if they fight it, they fight their own agreement, and we can use anything they do to get them to be responsible for the *hundreds of millions of dollars* of damage they have caused to innocent people's computers.
-Z
The users have to specifically want the scanners to remove this stuff.
... to the eyes at least!
1 23219
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/17/
dd the 3 maintenance scans you suggest (updates, anti virus, spyware) and the intimidated user is bowled over.
Well then the average user has a definite problem. Sure, they can migrate to a different platform (Linux, OS X, whatever) but as soon as that platform gains enough popularity, the malware writers will come to it. It can make it harder for them, but at the end of the day if a user wants to run an executable, or install software, or whatever, there's nothing the OS can do to stop them.
At some point, they are going to *have* to learn to perform basic maintenance on their systems; there's simply no other choice. Well, there is one I guess - pay someone else to do it for them.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
With regards to AutoUpdate, you know you can set it to advise that there are updates available, download them and prompt you to install/decline them, or just download and install them automatically, don't you?
Even if you don't want them installed automaitcally, you could have it tell you that there are some available so you can go to the windows update website and check them out for yourself. Just sayin'. (Of course, autoupdate only does critical updates anyway)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I'm betting one week before the first restraint of trade lawsuit from a spyware vendor. Gator/Claria has already made threats of lawsuits in the past just for calling it spyware, and I believe that spammers have slapped various blackhole lists with such lawsuits in the past. It's only a matter of time.
you been living under a rock ? not all adware gets installed by the unser, alot gets installed through exploits in IE and windows, WITHOUT the users permission.
Windows claimed it was a hardware fault (of course crashes are never ever Windows' fault, according to Windows) but when I uninstalled SP2 my hardware became stable again.
If it didn't make my computer unusable, I'd gladly run windows update. As it is, nope. I suspect I'm not the only person for whom this is true. My computer using habits are generally pretty low-risk, but the situation annoys me considerably.
to convince the marketing folks. I tell them once and leave with, "Hear me now, believe me later." After a while, their hearing improves.
When we the litigation start? Not soon enough for me.
I remember when Borland changed its name to Inprise and at that time I thought - 'Gees, what did they do to a good company with respectable products?'
Then they came back to their sences.
You can't handle the truth.
I read earlier this week that norton has removed scuzware from the virus signatures. bad move. the crap doesn't belong on MY computer, and I am hiring these outfits to get it out of there. looks like the snortin' futilities folks are getting on the wrong side of the fence.
if I didn't install it in full knowledge of causes and effects, it's scuzware. it must be removed. I will take my dollars to the outfit that does remove scuzware.
"enhancements" that render my computer inoperable for the primary purpose are theft of services, and should be prosecuted. no counter-arguments need apply. if they do, they can talk to my friend, Mr. Chainsaw.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Really, shouldn't the bullet go to the people who write these things?
insert blank cd./ x86/2004.2/livecd/install-x86-universal-2004.2.iso ;w instructions.
wget ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/releases
cdrecord install-x86-universal-2004.2.iso;
reboot.
follo
this is the reason why i dont use windows.. one minute after your installation is done, you already got lots of spyware.. heh.. cant stand it..
I use windows everyday at work and I never get spyware on it. Most of my idiot cow orkers are always getting spyware, adware, etc but I never do. We are all using the same type of computer with the exact same image loaded on it. Why do they get so much adware? Because they are inept. If you cannot operate a windows PC without getting tons of spyware installed then you are no better than the idiot end users I have to support. Your geek license is now revoked.
I have had a lot of luck with IPcop (ipcop.org). You can do a firewall yourself with any linux distro using iptables or the older ipchains, but ipcop is nice and easy and specifically designed for firewalls. It has a nice gui interface and works better than many commercial firewalls for the cost of a cheap box and two three nics something most offices (even non-profits) have lying around.
With something like this, you can radically improve the reliabilities of a windows network. I have often used it to reduce trauma calls by up to %80.
I like to use it plugged into the net on oneside and a NAT router on the other... double NAT is very hard to breach.
IPCOP also offers a proxy server and can be triplehomed to offer a dmz for servers you want open to the net. Quite a nice piece of software.
Oh really!!! that is really interesting!!! i'm glad you told me that!!!
I agree, and I hope it didn't sound like I was bashing the other programmers on that team. Actually, it's nice to have some coders around that have namespace/classes memorized and can fly through code. I understand many countries' education systems are based on memorization... China also comes to mind.
I had no idea Feynman had a biography, much less two of them. I'll have to hunt them down as I'm sure they're interesting reads. Thanks!
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
I have no way to tell if this assertion is true (I'm responding to an AC, who could easily be a Gator employee for all I know), but I can say it does not conform to my own (admittedly limited) anecdotal evidence. I have not seen any degradation of system stability as a result of installing SP2 on two of my own machines, nor on two others that I "take care of" for friends.
I recommend that no one should avoid Windows Update unless one or another update demonstrably causes the computer to stop working in some way, and in that case (I haven't seen that happen since NT Service Pack 4(?) or 5, I don't remember exactly), just uninstall the update and track down the source of the problem. It's probably a broken or out-of-date driver anyway.
Don't buy into the argument that updating software is risky and inconvenient and invites instability. It's nothing compared to having your computer OWNED by some kind of virus, worm, or malware. It takes a small amount of knowledge, and a slightly larger amount of common sense to keep a Windows computer stable and malware-free. This requirement is no reason to give up on running a safe machine.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
Not all spyware is evil, come on look at the bright side, you get to charge customers for reoving all the spyware. If there was no spyware then not as many people would call me to have their computers fixed. It's easy money, specially when you tell them that it's so infected that the only solution is to frormat and do a fresh install.
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!" - Emiliano Zapata
I remove spyware from 10-20 customer PCs per week at work ($60 each). In safe mode after clearing out the restore folder, and making sure i have access to all the files on the drive AdAware will catch ~15 programs in 1000-2000 traces. Then run Spybot and get another 10 in 200-300 traces. After that i reboot and go directly back into safe mode and run Webroot Spysweeper and ill still catch another 2000+ traces that the first two missed completely. Also, the people that created vx2 need to be hurt badly.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?"
Those are the two titles, so you don't have to look them up. They are an interesting read, if somewhat sad in parts due to the death of his first wife.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Whoever modded this is an idiot. It is clearly on topic. There is a "High Fidelity" reference, don't mod me down because you're dumb.
Forecast for tomorrow: A few sprinklings of genius with a chance of DOOM!