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Spyware Fines OKed By House
glimmy writes "The US House of Represenatives passed a bill that imposes fines on the use of Spyware by a majority of 399-1. This bill excludes programs used by the FBI or spy agencies, though."
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How tight or loss will this definition be??? can any organization apply for it. Or will it be only for government spy agencies? How about foreign ones? The article has this line in it " The House bill approved Tuesday explicitly permits snooping software built by the FBI (news - web sites) or spy agencies secretly collecting information under a court order or other legal permissions affecting federal departments." Ok which courts? US? ones, how about if N. Kora spy agency got court orders to investigate some one in the US (ya right really like this will happen but just for the sake of the question please give me this one) will that be allowed? Now how about company X higher a company in China, that gets a general court order there to do spy ware, and lets say for further argument, lets say this chines corp gets "classified" a spy agency? Is that legal, or is the lay written that only US spy agencies? How about the spy agencies ones from our friends to the North Canada, lets say they are investigating some one that is part of organized crime there, but lives in the US? Or is this just another feel good law, like the can spam law? I would hope this does decrease spyware (but how many of these spyware organizations are just going to move off shore?) I am tired of cleaning it off of friends computers, (one reason I make it a part of my procedure, no mater what I do, I install spywareblaster)
Put on tin foil hats now?
I wonder what the exact definition of spyware is according to that bill ?
/. when you read this is spyware, while the gator and 30 browserhijacks/toolbars/etc you volunteerly installed and accepted thru a 30 pages long eula isnt ?
Theoretically the cookie set by
Not to mention various pieces of software that installs on windows machines when you try play a regular audio CD..
Its imho a good thing to ban spyware, but im just really unsure what to ban..
This bill excludes programs used by the FBI or spy agencies, though.
You left this out from the article:
The House bill approved Tuesday explicitly permits snooping software built by the FBI (news - web sites) or spy agencies secretly collecting information under a court order or other legal permissions affecting federal departments. There excluded when they have a court order, issued by a judge for cause. They can't just do it willy nilly for kicks.
You know, cops can also run red lights and speed when they're chasing suspects too. On no! abuse of power!! Sheesh.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
If I download a program called Weatherbug because it tells me that it will give me quick access to the weather, and then I find out that there were also many other stipulations in the 'user agreement' that 1% of people read, it's spyware.
IMO, Realplayer is spyware, AOL Instant Messenger is spyware. There oughta be a crackdown on dishonest software. When Realplayer starts with all the subscription defaults as deactivated, except for the ones conveniently out of view, SPYWARE. When AOL Instant Messenger wants to put wild tangent bullshit on my computer when AIM used to be for IM'ing people, SPYWARE. Sorry, but it's dishonest programming and doesn't give people enough options for how to disable it or even realize that it's there. Weatherbug does not have anything other than small text about its spyware.
Also, Microsoft is at fault. It's usually just one-click 'yes or no' that decides whether or not the average user has infinite spam, goes to coolwebsearch.com at default, and loses a reliable internet connection... 'Install on Demand' should be disabled by default. I once had spyware installed.. turns out I clicked 'yes' one time when I was just quickly closing popup windows.
They ought to impose the same kinds of restrictions that credit card companies have. When I get a CC add, I can instantly sort through all the bullshit. When Capital One sends me their junk mail, I can open it up and instantly see that $79 a year credit card membership fee is a ripoff. In software, you have to read through a longwinded user agreement - often only available after the software is already downloaded and installed.
The average user is stupid. But, it's not always only stupid users that are being deceived. The software itself lies about its purpose.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Today I got a call from one of our clients we take care of about spyware problems. Now they have all the latest and greatest in cleaning tools. They all are net savy and don't click every box that pops up. Well some got so bad today they wouldn't function. The woman's in charge was the worst and I know this lady does know how not to screw things up and she was swearing up and down. "I haven't done anything!"
Well 4 hours later for 2 people we get everything cleaned back up. I set the "Tea Timer" on Spybot S&D and set it to show a prompt when it hit something. (setting the prompt is something I have never done before). I fire up IE and the home page is msn.com and BANG "Cannot download file AvenueA, Inc". FROM MSN!!!! Yes folks trying to download in the background from an ad image. Coming from machine name view.atdmt.com and it hiding behind the image trying to sell you msn broadband service!!!
They call this "Trusted Computing"?
Yes friends not only will MS sell you a holey OS but then we will pirate it from you using their own exploits in their browser!
I called MS and of course it wasn't us. (even offer to send them the logs and the captures from the network, but I don't know what I am talking about...) After 3 hours I talked with a supervisor that "acted" like he cared. Well log files don't lie and neither do I.
No this is no joke. I wish it was. At least the problem is solved for our client. We blocked msn at the firewall
A point about this I'm not really a M$ basher hell I've made my living on NT since 3.51. True I perfer Linux but have always siad that M$ was ok and you could TRUST them. Well that ended that today. As I said I don't lie especially to people who are paying me and putting their trust in me so the next time I am asked "Can you trust Microsoft?" the answer will be NO!