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Anti-Spyware Bill up for Vote in Congress
paul_friedman writes "According to Reuters - The U.S. House of Representatives will vote as soon as next week on a measure to crack down on deceptive "spyware" that hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities."
A lot of these programs do tell you that they are going to load Gator or some other piece of sh*tware. However, it is buried in the middle of the EULA which most people "pagedown" through rather than read 10 or 15 screens of fine type legalese. I do read them or at least scan them for the part about giving me even more
"free productivity"
software. This legislation like the spam legislation (CanSpam), will simply embolden those who have been hesitant. Now that they can legally load your system up with spyware as long as tell you somewhere, no matter how hard it would be to actually find it, they will do so. I just wonder what these politicians are smoking when they come up with these "solutions."-erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I don't get any more free computers that "don't work?"
I would be prudent to put spyware in diebold's voting machines though.,.
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
As if the people who write spyware care about the law and doing what's right
It's probably going to be as effective as the CANSPAM act.
How are they going to nail people in Russia and China?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I'm guessing since a lot of this garbage originates overseas that we can use this as another poor excuse to go to war??? /duck
What will the honest folk at claria (a.k.a. gator), "A Leader in On Line Behavioral Marketing", The do about this?
More useless laws that can not be enforced.
Just like attempts to make P2P filesharing illegal, it will be virtually impossible to regulate or control.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Nice, more unenforceable legislation. Go Congress!
Corporations contributing to congressional campaigns are exempt, of course.
...it's time to get the tree trimmers out, heat them up to temperatures that will cauterize, and then truncate something important to the spyware authors...
Of course, if the dominant web browser weren't vulnerable to installing trojan software on a user's computer in the first place this would be a moot point.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Isn't this already illegal? Lately I'm afraid of legislation banning things that are already illegal. Take the DMCA, for instance; copyright violations were already punishable, but all of a sudden a whole slough of other things are, too.
I say, let's strengthen our ability to enforce laws we already have on fraud and invasion of privacy. It seems new laws, making more things illegal will simply become another "gotcha" for folks using legitimate software.
80% of what I do at work is cleaning spyware. I would be out of a job if it stopped existing.
There is really nothing that can be done. It is called social engineering. The end user does let them into the computer, not by choice, just by staight ignorance. This is just another set of laws that will mean nothing.
It'd really be nice to see this issue talked about in the more mainstream press, so that it gets a negative following like spam has. Might not solve it, but at least people will know it exists.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
So now it's going to be a crime to commit a crime?
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
yes, girls read /. too...
What really needs to be done: have the gov't put in place a formal pricipal that states THIS. Maybe then they'd actually accomplish something.
I think governments really have more important things to think about than spyware and spam - oh, I don't know... wars, the economy, health care, education, ways to spend the money they make off the tobacco industry for everything possible except for the health issues they are saying they nede the money to pay for...
If someone installs spyware it is their fault. Nothing is free on a Windows machine. Take some personal responsibility for jebus sake.
Here's a question. Why are all the spyware programs written for Windows rather than Mac or Linux. There are perfectly good freeware programs for the other OSs and they aren't laden with the crap?
Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't it make more sense to create an agency (in the manner of the FCC or CRTC) with the mandate to regulate these types of activities? That one agency, given the ability to pass regulations as the FCC has, would be able to regulate things like SPAM, Spyware, and other interests (viruses perhaps?). They could impose fines for companies that write programs to do this kind of work, publish lists of software banned under the regulations, and so forth.
Just like the acts that created the CRTC and the FCC, it would be a simple matter for Congress to say 'there is a problem, you guys handle it', rather than having to learn the full issue every time something needs to be done.
--Dan
Being the honest, law abiding, trustworthy corps these spyware companies are. I'm sure they will comply! Expecially when the law in question will be virtually uninforcable. We can trust them! Really!
As many others have pointed out, this will probably be as effective as a law as CAN-SPAM was. What they really need to do is to make it illegal for companies to profit from the selling of the data that these spyware/adware programs collect.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go upstairs and uninstall SpybotSD and Ad-Aware from my Windows box!
This is just like when they made spam illegal. Oh, the joy I felt when I removed all the anti-spam measures from my server-- my heart was truly singing!
They don't care about controlling problems - they just want to look like they're doing something about an issue.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
that guarantees X amount of money to be put into enforcement/education efforts against existing cybercrime?
We don't need any more laws. We need law enforcement of existing laws. The current anti-computer tampering laws are effective in most cases.
Wait....
That requires /. to change to damn theme for IT ... christ, I like my eyes ... why are you tring to blind me ...
Like so many things Govt's do isn't it "bolting the stable door"? Spyware is out there, asking for people to "agree" to have it is just asking for a whole flood of "legalised" versions to infest PC's worldwide. Biggest problem is *obviously* that like spam this stuff usually comes from outside the "controlled" zone eg China, Russia, Papua New Guinea etc. Harden your security or change to a more secure system or get a better firewall! Then again I run OS X so I don't have to deal with this day on day...
I think the government should require people to obtain an Internet license, to get access to the Internet. It could be not only preventional (eg, avoiding spyware, how to remove it), but educational (incorporating a bit of HTML, possibly). It'll probably destroy the essence of the Internet (eg, a kind of virtual library), but people will be more educated.
Just like can-spam. Because they make it too complicated. It is really a case of illegal electronic surveillance, just like an illegal wiretap. You shouldn't be allowed to do it without a court order. The last I heard that was already a felony.
As usual they would rather pass a new pile of crap than enforce whats already on the books.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
the Assault Weapons ban? Feel-good indeed, and unenforced.
It's a PR stunt for the people who live in fear of what they do not understand.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
A slightly new EULA for windows.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Yet how many loopholes will be present to allow law inforcement to install keystroke loggers and port sniffers with any sort of warrent from a judge.
No doubt they'll justify any blatent breach of personal rights with a big 'fight terror' or 'freedom police' sticker and a grin.
I'll bet some spyware companies are already passing on data they collect in 'suspect' countries to higher powers. I mean, if there are spyware infected PCs in say... France, don't you think that greasy agents are taking advantage of that now. Expect exemptions, official or otherwise, for spyware companies that jump into bed with enforcers looking to get around the law.
May the Maths Be with you!
The article is actually rather devoid of information. If you want real data, you gotta go to the source: The Library of Congress.
For example, many articles in this thread have talked about them burying the the notice in the EULA. From the House bill:
The notice clearly distinguishes such notice from any other information visually presented contemporaneously on the protected computer.
They call that "clear and conspicuous notice in plain language", and it goes on from there.
As for enforcement: there's less spyware than spam. Spyware takes time to write, and it takes time to make it useful enough that dumb users install it. Claria is easily tracked down, and if they don't ask "This program will collect and transmit information about you. Do you accept?", they go to jail. Stupid users will click anyway, but "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain" (Frederick Schiller).
The solution isn't perfect: some malware writers will just move offshore, for example. But I have reason to believe that this legislation will do at least some good.
"The U.S. House of Representatives will vote as soon as next week on a measure to crack down on deceptive "spyware" that hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities."
This one is a slam dunk. I mean, what government offical wants their computer to secretly monitored??? ^_^
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Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical.
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
For instance...
Ability to opt-out (or must opt-in) to tracking/privacy related features.
Non-solicitation agreements.
Use of personal information. etc.
Also, force companies to have a brief overview of the EULA so consumers can actually determine what it is they are actually agreeing to without having a law degree.
A man can dream...
I have always sort of wondered why adware and spyware have not been lumped into the same category as malicious viruses. It is easy to say that they're not malicious, in that they don't delete files or make damaging configuration changes to a computer. However, they do create a huge performance decrease.
From what I have seen the average Windows user who uses Internet Explorer seems to have between 100 and 600 spyware items (according to ad-aware) on their computer. I see this because I do computer repair in my area and almost all of the times a computer is brought to me for repair it is spyware that is causing the problem. There's usually nothing else wrong.
In light of that, I think congress would do better just to redefine the laws already in place which deal with computer viruses. How about classifying any piece of software which installs on a person's computer without prompting them, or which has a primary function other than the one stated, as a virus (I mean in legal terms, not technical).
I researched spyware this past summer with a professor of mine at law school. The main flaw with all the proposed spyware legislation (there are around 10 pieces of it at the state and federal levels) is that it focuses on regulating "spyware" itself, rather than dealing directly with what bothers us about spyware. This is especially problematic because spyware is defined to cover a hopelessly broad array of software. As a result, two different legal issues have been handcuffed together. These two issues are information privacy and trespass.
Information privacy covers all the collection and use/abuse of personally identifiable information. This concern is not unique to spyware. It also exists in the use of bank records, medical information, etc. The EU has done a better job than us of consolidating information privacy concerns into a coherent body of law. In the US we have a legal patchwork that covers each use of personal information separately.
Trespass covers the installation, disclosure of functionality, and uninstallation of programs. There is a strong analogy here to real property, where you have some control over who comes onto your property, what they do there, and your right to expel them. One area that is in flux (and it is not unique to computer software) is that burying something in legalese in a license agreement may no longer be viewed as giving someone notice. This view is already being taken by some courts with regard to boilerplate contracts for products like cellphones.
In the end, this legislation is flawed because the legislators failed to identify the distinct issues of information privacy and trespass and address them separately. Identifying and separating issues is rule #1 when it comes to the understanding the law. I would imagine this mistake was made because this law involves technology, which probably makes legislators think they need to write completely new law. Sometimes this is the case, but often it is better to extend the laws we have developed over hundreds of years.