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Given Up to Spyware?
Khuffie writes "Wired has an interesting article about how some people have given up to spyware, knowing that the software they're installing virtually takes over their internet connection. What's even more ironic is that they claim it's a necessary evil for free software, when things like the Google Toolbar virtually replace Gator, and there are many spyware-free P2P programs available."
The link in the summary is incorrect, the story is at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65906, 00.html.
This comment was thought up very late at night and does not necessarily reflect my views at a more reasonable hour.
I'll blame sites like Download.com that started this trend.
Download software foo from us, but it would come with Gator and a whole shitload of spyware. And then, everyone else started following suit.
I still remember times when spywares and trojans were hacker-only. Greedy corps brought it to the masses, and now it's become an accepted part of the "Internet experience."
Spybot
Adaware
Oh, and Linux.
This is a horrible trend; it will reward the 'marketing' groups that dream this crap up. I've got my mom working against all this crap via GoogleToolbar, Spybot, etc. It's a joke that she has to do that, but on dial up a few well laid spyware apps make her system un-surfable.
;)
What will it take to break the back of Spyware? Spyassassin?
PCB@
free ipod and free gmail!
People just don't care... they can't be bothered to think about it. I've talked to so many people, "yeah.. I need to get a new computer, this one's slow" their system gets hosed, they just get a new computer. wtf is with that?
My guess is that they spend about a second looking for something on the net, and grab the first listing on Download.com.
The jewels are sometimes well buried, but worth far more than the dog shit on the surface.
Beatings for these people who refuse to educate themselves - of course, when your generic XP box gets owned in 2 minutes, I guess I can't blame them.
Even data entered on secure websites -- such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers, information that is supposed to be viewable only by the sender and the intended recipient -- is accessible to Marketscore, since the company has developed a method that allows it to view encrypted information.
How does Marketscore view encrypted packets? Is it just monitoring your keystrokes? I doubt they are cracking all your traffic.
Hacker Media
I think there's also a substantial number -- perhaps the majority -- who simply don't care, or are in denial about the level of spyware infestation. The way the average punter sees it, it's something that only technical boffins who want to ruin end their toolbar-collecting fun care about. I have a sad anecdote about this in TFJ.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
But the intarweb told me that the Google Toolbar WAS spyware.
Two Roommates and a Boyfriend, updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
You know...what's disturbing about the theme of this article, is there is so much free software out there that doesn't require spyware, and all of these people are completely unaware.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
What's kinda sad is what these people most want to do is e-mail, internet, send/receive pictures, do some basic word processing.
I reinstalled XP for my aunt who stopping using her pc, within minutes of being on the internet it was getting nailed. I couldn't even download patches.
It frustrated me and I know what I am doing.
please no jokes.
Yeah I don't care if the government breaks down my door and searches my place in the middle of the night, it's a necessity to live safely within the US.
Quite simply, this is a situation that can be addressed with education. Since we don't have access to big media, we have to do it by word-of-mouth. This means spreading Firefox and other crap-free alternatives, even free plugins for IE if someone chooses to use that browser. It's also important not to force things on people in our typically annoying geek ways. Educate people, so that they can decide for themselves and realize that there is a world of software in which this stuff is frowned upon and actively fought against. Someday with enough effort, spyware will become an amusing memory.
Oh great so now these authors of these spyware programs are going to think that we don't actually mind about their takeover of our pc's.
Spyware makers hear us - we do NOT like your damned "software".
In the Slashdot moderating system, humourless based offenses are considered especially heinous.
I had fought and will continue fighting with them till I use windoze.
recently I uninstalled zonealarm and norton and found that within few days of surfing and downloading stuff, I was infected with many spywares. I was really annoyed because they were sucking my computer!
I tried downloaded programs like lavasoft liked from the microsoft site, but I was not effective. Then in vain I used msconfig and searched each one of them in registry and deleted them. I learnt later that I had to disable the system restore in windows xp.
Then I started my computer in safe mode and deleted files like conscorr.exe, msbe.dll,localNRD.dll etc etc!
Now I am happy without them!
I for one welcome our new spyware overlords.
YORKLE!
They're called morons.
Shouldn't all this anti -virus, -spyware, -malware, etc. software be added to the TCO for a Windows license both in cost and time?
Foolish notions are stated, repeated and believed. Things like "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear" and "you get what you pay for" ring through their heads. These faiths are unshakable... might be easier to convince them there is no god.
I've had people swear up and down to me that I couldn't use OpenOffice.org in a business setting even when the software's license specifically states otherwise. People believe the craziest things. It will just take some getting used to... this whole free software thing.
Personally I just format my sister's comp every 3 months or so, I don't know how she does it, but she manages to fill it up with more spyware/adware/free smilies than I thought possible, so I just save her important data, and format. I used to try and stop it all, and try to educate my sister, but that didn't go too well.
The cost of the privacy lost is invisible and (apparently) non-intrusive, while the cost of the time and effort is obvious and immediately quantifiable.
Think about how many times you've heard someone say things along these lines: "Can you believe I spent 6 hours cleaning spyware off my system and had to reinstall Windows twice? Then I had to find new software with a privacy policy acceptible to me, and it took hours to download and install it all."
Compare that to how many times you've heard someone say something like: "Wow! I had spyware all over my system. It was tracking my shopping and browsing habits, reporting my computer usage stats to ad agencies, and sending my IP and passwords to a scam company in Russia!"
The cost former is obvious to even the most ignorant users, while the cost of the latter requires much more insight and knowledge.
open ports one at a time.....
just having a 1 port router will keep most of the fresh install vulnerabilities off line to the net, and allow you to get what you need.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
"a necessary evil for free software"? If I were RMS, I would be astounded. It is not "free" as we all here supposedly know (like GPL or Creative Commons free), but simply money free. So basically, the spyware is free as in beer, but Open Source/Free Software is free as in freedom (from beer and spyware!)
TFJ? What is that?
The Fucking Journal, in the vein of TFM (manual), TFA (article), etc.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Someone needs to make spyware illegal unless someone actively buys a PC sponsored with the crap. ie. those 'free' bannered PCs from years ago. The average computer user just is not capable of keeping this crap off of their computer. Windows is becoming more and more useless as a plaform because of this 'stuff'.
All I can say is THANK YOU KDE for kiosk mode. I now have my parents surfing with a crap free computer, dynamic DNS, auto-updates, and has been running bug free for months now. 8)
I go on vacation for a *DAY*, and look what happens. I'm sorry, I lost control of the Internet for a second there.
/REALLY/ enjoys spyware, don't worry.
Everything should be back to normal in a minute, no one
I like music
To quote a few users from the article :
"I had a good idea what the Marketscore software does, though I didn't read the entire user agreement"
"I can't surf the web and I can't trade files if I uninstall the spyware."
"I can't afford a subscription to keep my antivirus software updated. Marketscore doesn't charge any fees."
"They said they'd opted to install it on their computers because they wanted the eWallet application that stores passwords and credit card numbers, entering them into web forms with one click. The users said you have to get the adware if you want the eWallet."
"In Hungary, many people who grew up under communist rule came to accept government interference in every aspect of their lives as inescapable. They were too tired to fight anymore, so they convinced themselves that communism was OK and even a benefit."
For those of you on the "Steam Rules" side of the debate: "Any of that sound familiar?"
THIS is the reason those of us on the "Steam Sucks" side of the HL2 debate have taken the stand we've chosen to take. We're not warez d00dz. And we recognize that Vivendi are a bunch of middlemen who aren't worthy to fellate a goat. And we acknowledge that Valve has gone to the dark side (as Kazaa and the other P2P apps did) of spywaredom - at least not yet.
But we see Valve's solution as a cure that's worse than the disease of piracy. And we see the main arguments of Steam's proponents as eerily reminiscent of the examples of clueless luserdom shown in the Wired article. And we ask: can your system's integrity be that easily sold?
Every time a Steam defender speaks, he or she should take a very close look at his or her argument... and the arguments presented by the spyware defenders in the Wired article, and ask yourself: but for the grace of Gabe, there go ye?
What we need is a good hacking job on one of these companies. Every now and then we hear "Amazon.com/newegg.com/etc Hacked, millions of credit card numbers stolen". But Amazon.com has deals with Visa, Mastercard, etc. and they happily protect their customers. What would happen if a company like this was hacked, and tons of information was stolen? Maybe people would wise up to the fact that no, its not OK for these people to monitor your activities, even if "it's not like there's anything interesting or criminal in my e-mail.""
What these people who accept spyware don't seem to realize is just how much it screws with their computer. Even if they DON'T care that some random shady company is stealing their private information, the spyware can still bring their computer to a stand still.
I work in the IT department at my college and 99% of the problems that students have in the dorms is spyware/adware related. I've seen brand new Dell computers literally slowed down to a halt as a result of the crap that has been installed on them within a few days. Students somehow manage to get used to the unbearably slow speed at which their 2-3ghz computers run at, never associating the slowness with the plethora of file-sharing programs, toolbars, and search tools they have installed on their computer.
So yeah, I can't believe that some people actually think that spyware is a necessary evil of free software. That paints a sad picture of the current state of the Internet, IMO. I want to say "People are dumb," but that wouldn be neither fair nor valid. People are simply uneducated in these matters and do not care enough to become educated.
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
Over-aggressive programs attack users, unprovoked, and wreak havoc once they get there. Of course, they get there under the auspices that they're "helping" the users. Yeah, that does sound like a familiar military policy.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
You can't escape it. Just have to learn to keep your mouth shut and live with it, right?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Ah, this is where I like to kick my feet up and tilt the chair further back.
As a mac and linux user, I don't have to worry about this. The PC/Windows scenario will eventually be the death of its self.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
As horrible as it may seem to some /.ers most people don't really care about their privacy - convenience is more important. Hence this acceptance of spyware and reluctance to switch from Windows to a less spyware-prone system.
No wonder many prefer spyware-infested Windows box to a clean Linux system - it's more convenient that way.
The other day I installed Firefox extension SearchStatus 1.0.4 - the main features being display of PageRan and Alexa rank of pages browsed. Of course soon afterwards I realized in order for it to work the extension sends all URL I visit to Alexa.com (and Google, which is indicated in their toolbar privacy-related help pages).
This is how convenience wins over privacy (I disabled the Alexa Rank only).
I've heard from several ISPs that some customers complain when all spam is blocked - they LIKE to receive spam because they're bored or like "specials".
This has to be the clearest example of the difference between free as in speech and free as in beer.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
There may be some question about what the user wants and doesn't want, but that doesn't excuse antivirus manufacturers from dodging the problem. If the ability to prevent spyware from installing was ubiquitous (as are virus scanners nowadays) we'd be winning the war. Nobody should have to accept this as an industry practice; things have been getting way too lax with EULAs and intrusive copy protection methods as it is, but this is over the line and we should treat the people who distribute it as we would those who distribute viruses or worms.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I used to use Bearshare, and still would today, if it weren't infested with things like NetDotNet.
It would be so nice if Kazaa would just work, instead of clinging to kazaa lite k++.
And I'd pay a one time fee for a product like MSN Messenger with working voice and camera functions, but they know they can make way more money long term by selling ads to me for the rest of my MSN-using-life.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It's people like those interviewed for the article that are the reason spyware and adware exist. People who are CLUELESS, in general and specifically with computers, that don't see the irony in installing a program that records your user/pass combinations and web history to get a "free" "antivirus" "scanner".
Just like Nigerian scams, enlarge your penis spam, etc.
I thought congress passed a law a month or two ago making it illegal?
Perhaps the FBI should start knocking down doors from all these companies that produce it.
I agree trojan horses and worms are illegal and you can get thrown in the slammer for years if you write..... but not if your a corporation using it to sell to dataminers.
http://saveie6.com/
Of course, SSL has provisions against such proxying, which it considers a man-in-the-middle attack, but after five seconds it came to me that if Marketscore's proxy installs stuff on your machine as administrator, it's probably installing Marketscore's root certificate as well.
Spyware doesn't just cost you privacy. It slows your computer to a crawl. Just imagine how much productivity you lose to this scumware. :(
I think people who decide to save time by sacrificing privacy will have neither.
1. In Soviet Russia, spyware uninstalls you!
/. cliches I might be forgetting, so we can get them all in one post, mod them up, have everyone read them, and then maybe they'll RTFA for once. Which, by the way, isn't half bad.
2. In Korea, only old people install spyware!
3. I for one would like to welcome our spyware overlords. Really.
4. Natalie Portman spyware good, SCO spyware bad.
5. Micro$oft sucks, Netcraft confirms it.
Feel free to add whatever
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
Fixed now due to complaints
It wasn't a third party download either. It was the version you got directly from Mozilla and the spyware part wasn't an option, it was part of the package.
If I find out a piece of software I need has spyware I run AdAware to clean it up and if that doesn't fix it, I uninstall the program when I'm done with whatever I was using it for and find something else.
If the program is up front about it and isn't an obnoxious little whore about it, I'll let it slide. Google Toolbar is spyware but it's nothing I object to and nothing I can't opt out of. eDonkey decided to infect Windows with a pain in the butt to remove browser hijack so that will never be used again. Apparently the ads weren't good enough for them. I finished what I started downloading and completely removed eDonkey and cleaned up the spyware.
If Mozilla had been up front about their spyware in the German version of the browser, they wouldn't have had such a negative reaction. All they had to do was make it an option and point out that it helps fund the foundation to try to persuade people to use it. But, instead they decided to use typical spyware tactics and tried to slip it in under the radar without the user's consent.
Work Safe Porn
...because we know a lot about tech, and most people don't. We don't tolerate our computers being screwed over with spyware. But - it's only because we know what it is, how bad it is, and what's at stake.
But to put it in perspective - I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van. I know there's a problem, and I haven't made it a priority to fix it. The mechanic (bein a pro and knowing what you can and can't get away with) would probably think I was insane.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
It hurts my head to think down this level. There's plenty of examples to give where the same lack of understanding and ignorance would lead them into a ditch slowly filling in their car with sand but I'm to damm tired and frustrated after having removed fucking gator's calendar application from ... a damm windows 2003 server because the ass clown admin thought it was neat.
These people are to damm stupid to use computers. I agree with the CIA guy; let them all take tests.
"I'm sorry, your too fucking stupid to use Internet A, you get to use the Short Bus Internet where your system will regularly crash and you'll have to call your local nine year old to come fix it for you, here's your pass"...
Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
It is not the storage space that makes GMail superior, either.
Effective GUI, innovativeness, simplicity, speed, interfacing with Google, and lastly space do it for me.
The whole thing is tragic, but the part that really made me raise my eyebrows was this:
Even data entered on secure websites -- such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers, information that is supposed to be viewable only by the sender and the intended recipient -- is accessible to Marketscore, since the company has developed a method that allows it to view encrypted information.
I'm dubious, but if this is true, it means they've broken the public key encryption used in SSL and are running a classic man-in-the-middle attack on everyone in their "panel"!
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
These are the same people who throw their P4 machine in the dumpster a year after they get it because it's "obselete and slow." ONE spyware may not be noticeable, but when you have them fighting for control of your internet connection, startup page, toolbar of choice, etc, it's gonna get to the point where your machine won't boot up anymore. Then, it's $1,000 to Dell for a new machine. And the first thing they install? Yep....Weatherbug!
Many of us returned home for the Thanksgiving holiday season to find a lot of very sad computers anxious for our visit. Allow me quick example...
My father recently purchased a new Dell, and um, Dude, he's getting spyware! I fixed him up. A few days later, he asks me why Outlook Express is blocking some attachments via email. It didn't do that "before I was there". *Sigh*. I've deprived him from his Extreme Elf Bowling (Now with Gator,CoolWebSearch *and* Pr0nDialer 2008 at no extra charge.)
Next thanksgiving instead of fixing these zombies I'm just burning a dozen "live" linux CDs. It will allow most of them to still get online and try to fix their own problems. It's tough love but as I titled this reply; we continue to carry the burden of their apathy. In this situation, it's really up to us to stop the cycle.
I just returned from Sierra Leone, likely the poorest country in the world.
A good internet connection is 8kbs and that's when the power hasn't failed or you have petrol for your generator and the phone system delivers a dial tone.
Even so, the 8kbps costs $200 a month in a country where an OK wage for a laborer is $2 a day -- when a job can be had at all.
When time after time I see 30-50 percent of that 8kbs bandwidth wasted by spyware, it really makes me angry.
Spyware hurts entire developing countries.
I think this is proof of what I've been saying all along: *People*Are*Morons*. This applies as a rule to most situations however there are some exceptions (/. being one of them... usualy)
Nathan Friedly
The problem isn't a lack of free software; I use several very effective free software titles on every computer that comes through my office (I do computer repair). Although the amount of people installing things like BonziBuddy is dwindeling, spyware is still 90% of my job.
If there could be a big list of software somewhere, I bet that'd be convenient.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
Does the FSF know about this? Should I worry that my Debian box is being threatened by the Gator?
An additional problem is that there are too many loons on the internet screaming hysterically about Spyware at the slightest opportunity rather than helping people really understand the issues and make informed choices.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
alt.privacy.spyware
It's like watching a group of people exchanging tips for what ointments work best for when they light themselves on fire. Over and over again.
that "Evil will always prevail over Good, because Good is dumb" - Lord Dark Helmet honestly i don't agree, but stupid people get what they deserve.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
KARMA WHORE ALERT
Dude, wtf doi you live that there is only one ISP? I live in the rural south, 50 miles from the nearest city of any size and more than ten miles from town. I don't have cable, don't pay for a dish - the cellphones don't even work here. But I can choose from about a half dozen different ISPs.
Do you perhaps mean they have the only broadband access in your area? Cuz.. that's not a monopoly, you know.. that's competition. Nothing for the courts to do there... and be thankful you have even that choice.
People are just plain ignorant. Not few of them, some of them, but most of them. Just think how many computers are sold on a year, and try to guess how many of those are as much as amateurs regarding basic computer operating: pretty low, that number would be. People just buy the box, don't really care what's inside, they just want that their internet (which is equivalent to them with Internet Explorer in terms and in function as well) just works, that their movies and music just play. They never even get to the point where they would recognize the fact that basic protection would save them from 99% of their troubles. They just blame those fscking hackers, viruses (if they know whatthey are, that is), file sharers and open source in general. I have met such people, that's why I tell. For some of them FOSS developers are malicious hakcers spreading programs that make their computers slow so they need to buy a new one.
If it rains outside generally people take an umbrella or a cab or go by car. If a tsunami comes over their computers, they just simply don't care, but they are high and quick on blaming and spreading their stupidity (well, they don't know that, of course).
I don't know how this situation could be alleviated. Really don't. We had talks now and then with my friends on this matter, and e could never come up with an idea that would solve Everyday Joe's problems regarding computer illiteracy. And mostly because these everyday people think they know whatthey ae doing. Why ? Because companies like MS tell them, that everything is easy and that Windows is secure. And yes, to most people out there computer===Windows.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
This is one of my two favorite parts from this article:
Of course the only "supported" way is through Add/Remove Programs, and NOT through the use of Spybot, etc.
And here is the second tidbit (also from the linked article):
Fucking Asshats.
This sounds like something out of the book of revelations. If I were religious I'd be spooked.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I choose the second. I mean, I don't know how valuable it is to marketers to know that I visit Slashdot 18 times a day.
ive never had a single peice of spyware on any of my computers, and not because i made a sacrifice of not installing something i want because it has spyware.. ive installed everything ive ever wanted i just know whats good and whats bad.
I think that right now, and for the forseable future the ideal answer for users like this is a Mac. Assuming you can afford it of course.
I swear i was driving in burbank california and this guy had a license plate that was "SPYWARE" and I was thinking thats like having a plate that says "SLAVE OWNER" or "ASSCLOWN".
:)
There was a license plate frame with a website on it but I cant rem it..and didnt have my dig cam with me to take a pic. I actually even thought it would be applicable to some conversation on here, but had no idea it would be tonight.
Yeah, I'm not sure how it works with this, but it reminded me of the plate.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Last time I checked Google toolbar reports information to Google servers to get page rank etc. It doesn't make it spyware but it sure is adware. Has anyone seen the ads on Google? You get these when you make a search from their toolbar. They just bundle the button/text box with a lot of other fancy 'innovations' that you don't really use. But the main point is so that you use the Google search engine and visit their sponsored links to fund them. A multi-million dollar company wouldn't make a free toolbar for actually helping people.
And not the way you may be thinking. There could be a possibility that that very "My computer is slow, I need a new one" attitude is fueling the computer market, and therefore development. Spyware makes people buy computers, so a lot of companies aren't doing a thing to stop it... Especially companies like HP and Dell, where computers are packed with so much crap that you can't distinguish between programs the parent company put on there or the spyware.
...of the smacktards when you tell them that they don't need to replace their two year old computer because it is "too slow".
A simple removal of the spyware and toolbars, banning of IE and OE, installation of Firefox and Thunderbird is all that is required. Oh, and you have to tell them not to install anything else - just use what you have.
Always, the response to the question of what they use their computer for is: "web, email and word processing". A 5 year old computer will do that job with Win XP on it. Soon, a 10 year old computer will do it!
Please don't send a Word document when a text file will do the job.
Many ISPs don't support Linux or even Macs, or browsers other than IE or their-private-labeled one.
I've got my system wired so I can quickly change to a "Windows-box using IE without a router" configuration, which I do right before calling customer support. It doesn't make the problem go away but it makes them feel better about helping me.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Azureus doesn't have spyware.
As for people being happy with it I can tell you that most aren't once they realize what the problem issue. Working in tech support it took me a bit to figure out that people really didn't understand what it was or what it did.
I find comparing it to dirt and 'ad aware' or 'spybot' to a "vacuum cleaner". You need to vacuum in a house full of kids and the more 'reckless' you are online the more often you need to 'vacuum' your computer. I ask people if they would be happy with a $1,000 carpet stained from lack of vacuuming when vacuuming once a week would keep it 'clean'. More often than not they happily remedy their problem.
What I assume happens is that this spyware can see that the browser is making an HTTPS request, send the form data to the Marketscore servers over HTTP, and then make the HTTPS request from their servers, but that's hardly "view[ing] encrypted information." And even that's a bit scary, since the HTTP request from the user's browser to Marketscore can be seen by others (the user's and Marketscore's ISPs, people who have gained control of routers along the way, people on the same LAN as the person using this computer, etc.).
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
One of the more disturbing trends I've seen out on the net, is the trend that malware people take to Open Source programs.
In the case of Peer Guardian, they took the entire source code, and made a similar program loaded with spyware, and then dumped in on certain free/shareware sites.
What's worse is the dreaded spyware that respawns itself. My PC caught a strain of that and even thourgh Ad-aware caught it and wiped it, somehow it just regenerated itself and continued to try reconnecting my PC to the net when I had pulled the ethernet plug on the system.
You just about can't trust anything you put on your PC these days, and THAT is the real problem.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Sometimes it's easier to point fingers to the source of where you downloaded the file from, and I admit they should be responsible for what they distribute.
However, I've recently been talking to some people at (let's say) Gator and they seem to think that their software is illegally bundled with some applications that get distributed by sites like Download.com. 'They' may even be bringing legal action against these companies, since the 'software bundler' caused Gator to break their EULA when the software is installed by the End User.
I think it's interesting to note since Download.com should have screened it first, but to blame the spyware company whose software is bundled with it doesn't seem quite right anymore either...
...but it's still our problem. If people stopped using {spy,ad,mal}ware, those who make it would likewise stop. But while its true that uneducated people are the ones who truly perpetuate all this, it is the task of people who know more to try to educate the ignorant on alternatives. I mean, if we don't use it to help others, what's the point in having knowledge in the first place? So what we more technologically-minded folks can do to help is simply keep plugging away with the educational stuff. After all, community education is what got Open Source projects started in the first place. "There's a better way to do this..." has to be our motto if we want to contribute to fixing this problem. [My first Slashdot post, by the way. :^) ]
Or you could stop being a victium and use *nix.
It's "you're," not "your," and "too stupid," not "to stupid."
Declarations of mental superiority go better with at least a seventh-grade command of English.
Is MacOS X available for PCs now, or is it still only for Apple hardware?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
OK, how many of you play the role of tech support for your ignorant friends and family members? I do it, and I hate it, as I'm sure many of you do also. So, here's what you do.
First, compile a list of good books for beginners to teach them about their computer. Many of the Dummies books are good places to start. Just get your list together.
Now, the next time that big support call comes...you know the one...the one where the computer is really hosed, take a copy of your list with you and present it to your ignorant user. Tell them that you're going to fix their computer for free one last time, and this is that time. If they want any more, and I mean any more support from you, they must get to work on your reading list the following day. Occasionally, you're going to check in with them and see what they've learned so far. If they stop educating themselves, the support stops, period. No more reformats, no more virus/spyware cleanups, no more help formatting a word processing document. Nothing.
If they look at you dumbfounded, put it to them this way. Most likely, their biggest investment is their home, followed by their car, followed by their computer. There's no good reason that they shouldn't spend some of their time learning how the thing works, especially since you're spending your valuable time fixing it for them. They don't ask you to come over and change their oil, clean their gutters, or unclog their sink, so there's no reason to expect someone to continually fix their computer.
If your plan works, you'll surely get some questions as the person starts to read, but at least they're starting to educate themselves. As for those who won't listen, a couple of trips to the local computer store, at $50 an hour, will sober them up.
Remember the old days of the internet? All the internet was, was a loose connection of premium BBS's strung to universities. Ahh the old days.. You couldn't get anywhere NEAr the internet without atleast some knowledge of what that little ATDT was doing, or how to setup the PPP.
Meet new people, and kill them.
And it's SPY WARE, like night vision goggles and tiny microphones and such.
:D
So don't hit me or flood my site OK?
Bought a Mac yet? All the top FBI guys are doing it.
There are plenty of alternatives. Your fault if you're still buying Win crap. Bill is laughing all the way to the bank.
Buy a Mac, never look back.
Americans live in a country that voted in the government that created DMCA, Patriot Act, Dubya and his 2nd Term.
Looking at how people have willingly giving up their Bill of Rights rights for extra "comfort", purchasing a SUV for that extra comfort, etc. A country of fat, spoiled, ignorant fools.
It's really not surprising how it's translating to rights on the computer and web.
What makes windows so easy to attack?
I have been running varients of windows and linux for years. I know a bit about windows but not so much about linux. And yet windows on average gets infected once every month. Linux however, never.
Don't get my wrong, this is not a pro linux post. I just think it's strange.
If the people in question don't *need* to run Windows (e.g., they just want web and e-mail, etc), recommend a Mac or another alternate OS to Windows that you prefer, and explain its advantages in a language they can understand.
Then tell them that if they choose Windows, you charge $50/hour to fix it when (not if) it gets gunked up with malware to the point where it becomes unusable. If they go with what you recommended, you'll support them for free.
From experience our IT department looks down on people who accept spyware. Especially when most of spyware downloads other spyware which could download trojans. Those trojans and keyloggers can comprimise your login for NT/2000/XP. And when your system is infected with an exploit and is able to affect other systems on the network because of a slight IE6 patch for security missing. Then comprimising other systems that are behind closed doors!? I think it is time to fight fear with fear. If you gave up, think of it as giving up on the job. Do you really think you have your job/career for a long time just because you gave up and let the problem grow from a baby monster into a grandad?
#Insert VOTE commercial with running faucet here
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I can't think of another invention that has propelled people to give appropriate compensation for good software development. Although many people still enjoy having thousands of popups displayed on their computer daily I find many users wanting to pay for software that they download just to keep the annoying spam and trojans away. Anyways, kudos to those who are doing this. You're making legitamate software way more valuable.
believing the big bang requires a certain amount of supernatural faith
You forgot ability to search, which is required with 1 GB, IMO. But that dude still didn't answer. MOD Great-Grandparent -1 flamebait.
My Favourite Meme
Please keep it down. This is all good business. I just started a PC Management business. I will repair any software problem on your PC for a flat fee of $25.
/home partition. This is an automated process that replaces the contents of the drive with my latest image, including the latest versions of the software. If you have infected your /home partition, I will re-image that, too.
Here's the catch. You have to buy my harddrive and pay $25 for me to install it. My install leaves your existing harddrive intact, and puts a secure, locked-down installation on my harddrive. After installation, your computer will boot off my harddrive, and auto-login as a non-priviledged user.
You get Firefox, Thunderbird, Evolution, OpenOffice, various music players, Helix Player, Gimp, etc.
You do not have privileges to install any other software. Your system is pointed to my repository for updates using a VPN client.
Your existing harddrive is mounted and visible. Your home directory is writeable.
Any software repair will consist of re-imaging my harddrive, except for the
I repeat, I will solve any virus infection, spyware problem, or other software issue that may arise on this machine for a flat fee of $25.
You must have your PC delivered to my shop for each repair. Your PC should be available for pickup an hour after you drop it off.
cool sig (not offtopic actually, but very little comment here. :/)
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Well, the thing to look at here is that the software that comes with this spyware, are we considering it still reputable? I have found that if you install a program which has spyware, then you run a spyware eliminator, the program you wanted is generally unaffected. What most people don't realize is that you don't have to download anything to get spy-ware. It can download to your computer from an impure website through active x controls, java, and can even be stored as data miner cookies. With privacy becoming more and more of an issue is this country, we are already locking spammers up behind bars, where spyware is just the other end of spamming, becuase thats how they determine what to spam you with. Should it not also be illegal? What ever the case, you do not have to accept it. Ad-Aware is the utility I use to clean such software from my computer, it works very well and is available at www.lavasoft.com. ~Distortion
I'm downloading Debian right now. :)
Still keeping Windows 2000 around though (for games, and possibly for the VS.NET development platform later on).
What a perfect strategy, OpenSource/Free software movement is just getting underway, so not many people know about it outside of this little ring of people. This will definitly taint the name of free software without actually attacking it head on.
They have it takes to learn simple fixes is minute compared to how long it takes. People are dumb because they'd rather watch a survivor re-run than make their unusable $1000 machine worth $1000 again. I used to feel bad computer places charged so much, but with the ignorance of users and their unwillingness to learn, combined with internet charlatans who play on their fears (recent case of a company adverising anti-spyware software when in fact it installs it). The net is lawless, and just as you don't give a stranger keys to your car because he wants to inspect your hubcaps, there's certain things you shouldn't believe about computers. At least the majority of users are finally spam-savvy.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"without spyware there's no such thing as free software."
I'd love to hear RMS' opinion on this.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I know some of this has been said in other posts already, but here they go.
Updating and running Ad-Aware is a good idea to get most of the junk off.
A firewall program that basically disables JavaScript, Java, and ActiveX. This will help a whole lot. Blocking pop-ups and banner ads helps too, as sometimes banner ads will contain malicious code. Ironically such programs may end up hiding the ads on slashdot, hence why everyone needs to switch to text based ads.
Sysinternals has two good programs called TCPView and Process Explorer. I run Process Explorer all the time, allowing to see if any processes are being ran that are unknown. I think it helped me stop spyware from being installed once when I killed an unknown process that was just beginning.
If Microsoft wants to survive, they NEED to fix Internet Explorer.
Dude, get a grip. It's a game. And this article isn't even about the fucking game. You need to get out of the house or something. You have problems.
I don't respond to AC's.
In the long run it stopped being a problem when the hard drive Symantec's adware was installed on dropped dead.
Nowadays there's a much better virus scanner, very simple to use. For *nix boxes, for example to integrate with your email processing, there is Clam AntiVirus. It's GPLed Free Software, has a great mailing list, its virus database is updated regularly. There is an automated tool called "freshclam" that gets database updates.
I use ClamAV when I download my mbox files from my hosting service. At one point I was getting 400 MB of email a day, almost entirely viruses, and clamav was very simple to use to delete the virus-infected messages, so the combination of legitimate mail and spam was just a couple meg each day.
For scanning your hard drive under Windows, there is a GUI program called ClamWin, based on the clamav engine with the same virus database, and automatic updates. It's a very simple program, with a minimalist user interface. It's very easy to use and effective.
What I can't figure out though, is how to satisfy WinXP SP2's insistence I get a virus checker. It doesn't recognize clamwin as being one. I would imagine all the virus scanner publishers had to pay microsoft for the privilege of being a recommended virus tool. Or maybe it's just that Microsoft doesn't want to admit a Free Software solution is superior to any of the proprietary ones.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I would be the one deploying the monitors to catch the stupid users who have installed Claria products... are they going to EULA me?
The first is evil, the second is evil and dumb... how many users know how to use a "network monitor," or read the output from one.. unless there are restrictions against a third-party implementing them between your network and the GAIN server
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Problem solved.
So what's next? Let's lower our pants and bend over for a few bucks?
I'd really like to see a spyware vendor try to sue someone for using network monitoring tools to find spyware installations, especially when the victim countersues and submits a detailed list of economic damages due to downtime, lost data, and labor required to remove spyware.
I've seen estimates of some viruses costing US business ten billion dollars for a single outbreak. How much does spyware cost the economy? Now, imagine some big company that uses all MS products on its machines, and isn't so good at keeping the spyware out. They could easily sue a company like Claria for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, to recoup the losses to the company because of the spyware.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
it would be good for us who make money to fix their computers. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I heard it from TV, so it must be true.
Anyway, all these people who are buying new PCs because their old ones are full of crapware can send the old boxes to me. I'm sure it's nothing a quick reformat won't fix.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
With news like this, I think it's time to start marketing adware that WON'T slow their computers down. Just sell it in a package that says Adware 2.0: New Features - more stable, 2412% faster, gets past firewalls, more pop-ups, more porn!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
One that I remember specifically was on guru.com, where the client was asking for a program that would set the, uh, "user's" homepage to a URL to be specified by the client, and then prevent the user from ever changing it to anything else.
You would think the job board staff would forbid such contract offers from ever getting posted, but I'm pretty sure that once someone has paid for a recruiter account at one of the boards, that he can pretty much post anything he wants without ever having to get it reviewed or approved.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
What you do is buy one of those spindles of 50 blank CD-Rs, they'll cost you, what? 50 cents a disk or less.
Download the ISO of TheOpenCD, and burn it onto some of those CD-Rs.
Hand them out to all your Windows-using friends and relatives, pointing out that it's not only Free Software, it doesn't come with any spyware.
Urge them all to duplicate the CD for all their friends and relatives, and point out that such copying is not only legal, but encouraged, as I'm sure is documented in ReadMe files on the CD.
If you don't feel you can afford the cost of the blank CD-Rs, you can ask for a donation of a dollar or two to cover the media and your time.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Perhaps the real question here is- why do we, the nerds, get so upset about snooping software? If it gives you some free functionality in return, then what is wrong with a little snoopyness? After all, most of us have nothing to hide right?
Is it something to do with the nerds controll freak tendencies towards his digital space? A reaction to his percieved lack of power in his real world environment?
Whatever- normal people do not care as much about spyware as nerds- they have got better things to worry about. Why? Discuss...
I get about one spam every 2 days in gmail. Hotmail gets only twice that. Even if you got like 50 spams a day at 40kb each (after you gave out your email adress to all those gay porn sites) it would take 450 days for that much spam to accumulate. Or if you wanted you could set up a normal email program to access Gmail though POP3; A REALLY GOOD OPTION THAT NO OTHER WEBMAIL HAS, and simply press ctrl+a then delete. I dont really know how anyone could dislike gmail; its very easy to use, incredibly fast, simple, clean, and very organized. The advertisements are either _beneficial_, or non-intrusive. Gmail is fantastic in all aspects, period. THeir desktop search thing is most likely NOT that much of a security risk if you're carefull with your system anyway, and it too is another attempt by google to make peoples computer experiences easier, faster, simpler, and more effective; just like their email; just like their browser.
uh - typo - i meant to say search engine
I was going to post along the same lines.
I would however add that:
1. For some people privacy really isn't worth as much as for the tin-foil crowd. E.g., so some third party can know I've visited this and that free porn site. Big deal. I'd give them the URL's myself if they asked.
2. A lot of the privacy threat is really blown out of proportion. When you have people whose income depends on convincing you that they protect you from the big bad wolf... they cry wolf lots.
Yes, key loggers are bad. On the other hand, idiotic programs who "clean up" my login cookies make me want to kill the author. No, it's not some spyware that tracks my every move, it's just a goddamn login cookie to a forum. I _want_ them to know it's me when I post.
3. In view of what you said, i.e., the effort and time cost of "privacy", a lot of the "solutions" are far worse than the problem they're supposed to solve. A lot of the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are far worse than having viruses and spyware.
To give an actual example, for a while I had McAffee's idiotic suite on my home computer. Gaah! That's _the_ biggest pile of festering crap I've ever seen.
E.g., their "privacy protection" made it impossible to log in to half the sites I visited. And made half the rest malfunction in weird ways. E.g., gamespy's fileplanet could no longer even make up its mind whether I'm logged in or not, due to McAffee's filtering the cookies.
E.g., with the McAffee crap installed, my computer took some 2 minutes to boot up, and some 5 minutes (literally) to shut down. Wasn't too fast in between either.
Partially because McAffee's idiotic auto-update was so retarded, that I ended up with multiple copies (and versions) of some of their programs in memory. Each update seemed to just add one more version to start up. I was running at least two instances of their anti-virus, and it actually tried starting two instances of the firewall too. Luckily, the firewall detected that a copy is already running, and gave me an annoying pop-up window each time I booted the computer.
E.g., their retarded auto-update and auto-scan slowed down my computer all the time. Each time I'd be playing an online game, what do you know, it's McAffee's idiocy _again_ clogging all my bandwidth with its downloads. The second time in the same day, no less. And then pops up a window asking that it reboots the computer, and causing the game to minimize. And occasionally crash.
Etc.
You know what? All in all, it was actually _worse_ than when I deliberately got a virus. (Short story: I was too lazy to go burn a firewall on a CD when installing Windows 2000 on a new computer, so I actually planned to get virused while I download one. Then I'd reformat and reinstall.) Looking at the bandwidth and CPU usage of that virus/zombie, it actually was _less_ bad than the effects of McAffee protecting me from them.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Interesting to see how marketscore's software doesn't (according to them, of course!) fall into neither of those categories...
Do we need a new category? I propose Crapware. When you realize you have it you say:
Oh crap!
So you'd like almost everybody to be a sucker just waiting for you to fleece them? Consider the downside then, you're the wolf and and when there are more sheep they put up more fences and put more dogs on patrol. The easier your neighbors are coralled and managed the easier it is to corall and manage you because the infrastructure is there.
Hey bright-eyes,
I was shaving by sixth grade and was a wrestler in high school. I got a 1500+ on the SAT and am at a prestigious Ivy League. So much for puberty stunting mental development.
"The Bell Curve" isnt famous, its infamous. If you are going to quote it, make sure you've read it, and also make sure you've read the criticisms of it. Because most statisticians would agree, its a crock of bullshit.
There have been a number of exploits for *nix, starting with the famous Morris worm, but he attacked Unix because that's what he used himself.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
link.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
What worries me about this is that people who associate "Free Software" with Open Source - they might begin to make similar assumptions about Open Source.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
What self-respect paranoiac would mail in a rebate? That stuff is snail mail spyware.
Even if you got like 50 spams a day at 40kb each (after you gave out your email adress to all those gay porn sites) it would take 450 days for that much spam to accumulate
Some of us get a lot more than that; without distributing our address in any fashion. At one stage I had a spammer spoofing mail from my domain. That was generating over 1000 emails per day, mostly spam bounce messages. Without gmail, I would have given up my catch-all approach a long time ago; gmail makes it possible. Certainly gmail is a great webmail service, and my email of choice, but anyone can improve!
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
Somewhere recently I read (maybe it was here) that fraud resulting from phishing, spyware and the like was costing the credit card companies and banks ten billion dollars a year. That's pretty serious, much more serious than allowing a marketing agency to know what websites you like to visit.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
It's entirely possible that these people who are singing the praises of spyware on message boards are paid shills. "It's not so bad! Come and join us!" Somehow it makes me think of some evil character in a fairy tale, trying to persuade the protagonist to turn to sin.
Of course it's perfectly possible to have Free Software without intrusive advertising. Ask Linus. Ask ESR. Ask RMS. Ask Vixie. Ask any of the millions of us around the world, who use and create Free Software! I don't see spyware in my kernel, my mail transport, my compiler, or my command scheduler. I don't see adware in my HTTP server, my FTP server or any of the clients I use with them. And if anyone tried to put it there, I'd just comment it right out of the source code -- and then post the diff files on the Internet, so other people could comment it out too. If I was feeling particularly bothered, I'd actually hack it right open, and make it post lots of bogus information to their servers. I'd post that hack far and wide, too -- and make sure the spyware authors knew I wrote it, so they would have proof of what I thought of them.
Just how difficult is it to block out this spyware, anyway? Can't you just patch the source, or edit the Makefile or whatever Windows uses in place of that, so the spyware portions don't even get compiled? Or do Windows downloads work somehow totally different to Linux and BSD ones?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
After I saw this.
"I wonder if people have simply given up any notion of privacy," said Budapest-based security consultant Yanos Kovas. "In Hungary, many people who grew up under communist rule came to accept government interference in every aspect of their lives as inescapable. They were too tired to fight anymore, so they convinced themselves that communism was OK and even a benefit.
I had to read the entire thread at -1 looking for:
"In Soviet Russia...
Spyware gives up on you"
or
"I wonder if spyware has given up any notion of intelligent users" said Baltimore-based network consultant Carl Peterson. In Soviet Russia, many programs developed under communist rule came to accept user incompetents in every aspect of their execution as inescapable. They were too numb to hide anymore, so they convinced themselves that stupid users were OK and even a benefit.
Of course the reference was on the second page...
The amount of spyware on one's computer can be worked out by this simple formula: Ignorance * greed *apathy / number of actually functioning braincells To each his/her own......
and each time a moderator just deleted it...
My last post read:
And I wonder how long until they are deleted as well.
When people let corporations spy on them willfully, they surrender their right to privacy. But these kind of people don't just stop with spyware. They let it go all the way up to the government. It's the uncaring and uneducated masses that have left our nation in a state of peril and uncertainty. When people stop caring, freedoms start disappearing.
because of these M$FT Windoze weaknesses (spyware,viruses,trojans,worms etc...)
i wiped that microsoft kludge off my box and run Gnu/Linux...
This is not a question of free- vs. closed source but one of Microsoft vs. everything else. You could just as well go out and buy a Mac and avoid all of this crap. I use Linux at home, but for a lot of the no-tech people, going out and putting a little more cash down for a computer that Just Works would be the best way to go.
But try telling that to somebody who has been bombarded with "Intel Inside" ads all of their life...
Not saying I agree with the grandparent (I dont), but one example does not a rule make.
Truth is, most jocks are, or act like theyre stupider than, say, geeks.
Though Id say thats primarilly for sociological reasons, not genetic.
how is Steam spyware? THAT is the major shortcoming in the anti-steam argument, and I've yet to hear a good answer to it.
This brings up some really good points.
I was recently in a situation where a guy I know, who actually makes money doing tech services by just consistently networking with people he knows, was working on a mutual friends computer while I was in the area. Kinda hanging around, only paying minimal attention (I don't like to advertise any skill with tech matters, it makes for boring conversation and tons of stupid requests) allowed me to see this guy make some serious errors and oversights, eventually ending with me having to fix the guy's computer so we could listen to this CD a friend brought over. (Somehow he borked it good.) This experience was enlightening for a few reasons:
1) I normally assume people know how to use their computers. It isn't hard, I taught myself everything I know (including programming skills due to demand at previous employers), and wouldn't consider myself supremely educated in CS, but very literate, or versed if you will. Call it computer intuition, or just simply common sense and some experience.
2) People really don't want to know. I hadn't realized this, but explaining things to my friend in very broad detail, after this other guy made some 'obvious' mistakes, only provoked the dullest interest, no real attention what so ever.... yeah, just happily oblivious.
Basically, it is just odd how something so simple can be so flagrantly disregarded by a great majority of people, when the slightest bit research or inquiry on their part could save a ton of time and headaches. But people are just different. I, for one, and probably many of the people here, find it stimulating to do some research on an author when we have finished a book, or on the information contained in an article, or the history of some discovery. The internet and other mediums provide us with a hand-crafted Discovery Channel-style special on any given topic as we choose them. We find this stimulating and helpful in providing conversation fodder for the future. And then there are people that would rather have the Discovery Channel compose their special for them, or, worse yet, ABC or NBC educate them about the modes and methods of CSI or Law & Order.
There is definitely an increasingly bimodal culture in this country (and possibly the world) along lines similar to these, the 'Tell Mes' and the 'Findout For Ourselves' or something similar to that. It is interesting, and should have increasing effects on politics and the economy. I am interested to see what develops.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Yes, I know there's the do good instinct in many of our hearts, but helping your computer unsavvy friends over spyware problems is only making the spyware problem worse.
Why? Simple. By helping them in case their computers get out of control, you're telling them that whenever things get out of control, there's this geeky guy who'd come over and eliminate all problems, FOR FREE. That, in turn, decreases their fear of spywares, and gives them incentive to install more spywares, since these "problems" cost nothing to eliminate.
And that's even bad for yourself. Consider the time wasted on your behalve, you could have used that time in much more productive activities. Cleaning spywares for friends don't even improve friendship or give you a better status among friends - frankly, being a hardcore computer geek is what the society belittles. The computer geek steoreotype in people's minds is someone who have no life and no friends. By cleaning spyware for your friends, for free or maybe for a lunch, whatever, just makes you look even more desperate.
I know I'm sounding very cruel. But come on, it's THEIR problem installing the spywares THEMSELVES, it's THEIR STUPIDITY being exploited. What's the point in interfering their business and in turn, making yourself the ultimate exploited person? There's really no point.
So the next time your friend calls you moaning about non-stop pop up boxes and super slow response, say you're busy and decline politely.
At least she was willing to use Mozilla, so the problem was not as bad as it could have been, but when her WinXP laptop started crashing recently, I scanned it, and found a bunch of spyware. "WurldMedia" seemed to be the main problem.
I asked her if she would scan the laptop herself once a week or so. "But that's your job" she said. "But..." I protested. "Who do you come crying to when you pop a button off your clothes?" she replied.
So I have accepted the job as WindozeXP administrator for my wife.
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But we see Valve's solution as a cure that's worse than the disease of piracy.
Your assumptions are flawed; hence Valve's solution is *not* worse than the disease of piracy.... for Valve.
Now, I don't play that many computer games, and I don't know the ins and outs of the situation. However, I *can* guess that if Valve has "gone to the dark side" (*your* words and insight), then there is no reason they should care about the end-user, except when it prevents them making money.
Seeing the situation as you would like it to be (everyone's system integrity is important), rather than the way it is (Valve are out to make money), causes many things to appear more complex than they are.
Valve are out to make money. Valve's "steam" system increases their overall profit. End of story for Valve, unless users' displeasure leads to more profit lost than gained.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Here is a list of infected file sharing programs.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/p2p/
That's the only way to get users to do anything about it. Scare them. Tell them that their credit card numbers, bank details, personal details, and the like could all be stolen if they're not careful. Instruct them how to protect themselves. If they still refuse to do anything after that, they're beyond help, Give up. It's not the most pleasant way to coerce people to action, but it's effective, and a few less zombie computers (well, close enough...) on the internet won't be doing any harm.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
But to put it in perspective - I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van. I know there's a problem, and I haven't made it a priority to fix it.
You know there's a problem with your brakes, and you choose to ignore it?
This is *worse* than the people who have zombified PCs spewing spam, and don't care; it's on a par with drink-driving.
It wouldn't be a problem if you were the only person at risk from such dangerous behaviour. Heck, some people might suggest it was a good way of cleaning up the gene pool. Unfortunately, like the drink-driver, you aren't alone on the road.
Do us all a favour, and get your brakes fixed, or at least have the grace to wrap your van (and yourself) round a lamppost on some unused road in the middle of nowhere.
(Okay, I'm aware that this probably sounds sanctimonious- my apologies for not phrasing it better).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
"Wired discovers: Stupid people exist."
(this from the people who brought you the death of the webbrowser...)
*Knoppix CD
*Ultility disc with Adaware, Spybot, etc...
*Reference manuals (if not too familiar with
Windows)
*Ball gag and rope
The last is for the person who is constantly asking you "what file is that?" and "how did you open that weird black box with all the text in it?" while you try to fix his/her computer.
I can't believe there are so many idiots out there that don't care about spyware. Even the author of that pitiful article has in the headline, "So What?" If it's your home machine, hey, fine, do what you like because it will never affect me. But if you're doing it on your company, school's or *MY* network, you'd better believe you will have every reason to care.
It's like those whiny bitches in the AOL and Netzero commercials. "I don't want to take responsibility for my actions, I don't want to enable a firewall, I don't want to run a spam filter, I just want it to work, so because I'm a lazy asshat, can you just go ahead and do that for me m'kay?"
I still get CodeRed and Nimda attempts. How old is that garbage? People are uneducated. That's why they still try to hit me. Because they don't know. Or care. Or both.
Now working in IT Security, from my perspective these people are even worse. Paraphrasing the asshat student who had spyware but didn't care, "This sucks. I can't even browse the web. The IT people are more annoying than this spyware ever was." Until you work in IT, ASSHOLE, you have to understand and abide by the rules and realize why spyware/adware/viruses/etc are so god damn terrible. They are NOT good things. And it's people like you that keep garbage like that perpetually circulating on the Internet.
And to the lady who doesn't have a virus scanner because her subscription ran out, screw you too. There are free alternatives out there.
Yeah, I've installed kazaa, grokster and other p2p crap that installs spyware. First thing I do is S&D or AdAware them off my system because the programs work just fine without the spyware. Most people don't know that and most people don't care.
I have a strict policy on my network. If you are found to have any nasties on your system, access to the Internet from your machine is taken away. There's only so much you can do before people piss you off enough to take such measures. And then people call you network nazi because you're doing your job. IT (and IT Security more specifically) is a very underappreciated field.
out the box, WinXP sits there trickle feeding stuff like music listening statistics; routing all searches through MSN, routing all misspelt urls to MSN, etc, etc.
If even the OS manufacturer does it, who else can you trust?
It also makes it harder for MS to crack down on spyware, because they'd be open to so many lawsuits if they disabled other people's rights to collect this data, while they did it themselves. Which is a pity, as spyware is the enemy of a functional WinXP system.
I used to use Weatherbug. In my opinion, there's still not anything as good, but there are some that are close and I have to settle for that be cause I REFUSE to deal with the spyware they want to include. The spyware used to be an option and now it installs without asking. IOh I can remove it and it keeps going, but spybot search and destory considers it spyware. I was amenable to having a cookie like thing for controlling the ads you get in the free version, but when they started including wacky crap with it, enough is enough. I hav e actgually been using and have been quite happy with ForecastFox extension to firefox, but it still does not kick off warnings. I have been using another program that does do this (not sure which one but it does kick off a warning) and does not have spyware.
I think what is needed is we need to find the programs they use and put the non-spyware versions or other programs and say here....use these....never install the others. If I have to remove them again, the price doubles. I would love to installl Linux on my mom's desktop, but tell my dad he does not need to run Nascar Racing 2004 or any other game. If most of these folks could run off the shelf games, switching them to Linux would be EASY.
Gorkman
I got firefox on my dad's pc, my mum's pc and am in the process of convincing my uncles and aunts to do the same. The recent spark of huge amounts of porn on one of my relatives' pc' was the direct cause of this action - and made them happily agree on protection. And hey, we're not talking about repair fee's ('protection money') here, as opposed to some anti-spyware vendors(...).
In short: if you can't beat them with words, embarrass them !
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Jame's Law of Good and Evil:
If you believe an evil is necessary, you are an idiot.
Look at Africa. AIDS is so rampant there that no one uses protection for sex. The feeling is that you're going to get it anyway, so why bother doing anything about it.
The main problem isn't really lack of education, it's that ignorant computer users do not WANT to be educated. I'm guessing that most computer literate people here have tried to teach ignorant computer users tips only to be utterly ignored. E.g., even if you get one to buy an anti-virus program, he'll NEVER actually update it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Its not as much apathy as consumer electronics have gotten so cheap in present day that it has become a mind set that its much easier to just buy a new blender or tv or computer without trying to get it fixed. Which for alot of things is true, when my tv broke i was quoted $150 to get it fixed, when a new one would only be $200. People that dont know much about computers assume its the same kind of thing, and also the rationalization of getting something new, plus easy credit makes these people think its just easier. I dont know how many people i know that have 2.5Ghz Pentium 4's that complain their computer is "old and slow" just cuz they've never defragged it or resisted downloading a free screensaver.
"Even data entered on secure websites -- such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account numbers, information that is supposed to be viewable only by the sender and the intended recipient -- is accessible to Marketscore, since the company has developed a method that allows it to view encrypted information."
Any ideas what they might be doing? Or is it just BS?
"People are rationally ignorant."
There is a better word for it. Sucker!. People are suckers. Suckers are there to be fleeced. My friend had a poster that said "Life is tough, it's tougher if you are stupid".
Here.... let me plant some virtual trees alongside my part of the information highway so that your soldiers (virii/trojans/spywares/etc) can more easily march in the shade on their way into my home.
What bothers me is that the purveyors of apathy in this case are university students, supposed to run the world of tomorrow. Oh dear!
The Original
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime"--Author unknown
The Improvements
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is."--Author unknown
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you can sell him fishing equipment."--Author unknown
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks."--Author unknown
"Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless he doesn't like sushi--then you also have to teach him to cook."--Auren Hoffman, Herald Philosopher
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in the boat and drink beer all day."--OldFox
"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to sell fish and he eats steak."--Author unknown
Taken from http://www.amatecon.com/fish.html
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
No, spyware and spam exist because some stupid people think they can make money that way or that a good way to harass their competition is to make their competition's users miserable. In short, it's because some people are stupid, greedy and malicious. The ultimate losers are those who waste their time and effort trying to get rich quick. The spammer who lives in a nice house is the exception that proves the rule that most make no money, especially when the exception goes to jail for some other fraud. It's more like Amway or work from home than anything else.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Removing a few reg keys won't stop spyware. Spyware installs BHO's, reg keys, and all sorts of other nasty stuff to hijack your system and IE browser and make it unusable. Shit, in many cases, unless you somehow manage to stop a spyware process without another copy spawning itself, most of the time they monitor the registry and put the crap back as soon as you delete it.
Instead of that, try HijackThis!, a freeware program for listing out most possible entry points for spyware.
Or, of course, you could run both spybot and adaware.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Nothing like spending six hours of ones life fixing my girlfriends parents "broken" computer... How can people install all that crap?
Luckily I had a copy of Mandrake, they had an easy background to find, and they are so inexperienced they don't know the difference.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
I call it job security.
Yeah, way to go Wired. Lets encourage people to install this crap. Somebody point those kids in the direction of actual free software (haven't they heard of gnucleus or bittorrent for spyware-free filesharing?)
Those that don't understand how they work don't know what kinds of bullshit they have to put up with and what kinds can be fixed.
Speak with experts in the medical, legal and financial professions and you'll find that their experience with the general public is the same.
Much of the public is like that little lamb that gets a buzz cut in the Pixar short before The Incredibles.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I had a problem with IE opening a full screen advert seemingly at random. Spybot and Adaware found nothing, and I'd tried scanning the drive for files containing at least part of the url it was fetching ads from, and again found nothing.
:)
It wasn't until I was playing Star Wars Galaxies that I found the problem. SWG had consumed every last resource on the machine, and Windows popped up an error message saying that a VB script didn't have the memory to open iexplore.exe. This tiny script had gotten itself into my startup, and launches IE pointed at an advert server once an hour. I'm kicking myself for not checking there in the first place, but I'd just assumed it was something that had embedded itself deep into IE.
Thanks SWG! Shame it was a bit dull poking rats with sticks, though.
Of course, in these enlightened days, IE has taken a backseat to Firefox.
There's a great article at Arstechnica entitled Malware: what it is and how to prevent it . Good read, if not a little on the basic side. However, it did suggest a great anti-spyware app called SpywareBlaster which is seems effective at preventing spyware in the first place..
;^)
That, couple with the Adaware and Spybot Search and Destroy, and I've had no problems whatsoever.
P.S. And it helps if you don't visit porn sites and download wares too
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
"Is the problem ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care."
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
I fix spyware infections on PCs at work. I will even fix coworker's personal PCs (brought in) if they need to work from home. They pay me to keep things humming, and I do my job.
But if my family or friends ask me to fix their Windows PC, I give them the best possible help. I say "GET A MAC".
My dad's 1999 blueberry iMac still does almost everything they need (almost == my sister wants ITMS and a burner). So far I haven't had to touch a thing, except for occasional version updates and document recovery requests.
Don't just treat the symptoms. Cure the disease.
Amazing feats of calculation could be done by all, facts that you've never read recallable over wireless net access for a nominal roaming charge.
... and headlines of poor souls 'crashing' in the middle of a crosswalk only to be hit by a city bus. Dribbling gatored idiots, infested with various malware included with p2p download software .
And the 'popup' ads! The future has given 'popup ads' a new meaning. The malware in some people's heads gives them the sensation of supple lips on their genitalia for at random instants as a teasers for them to think at some porno stim-site for $9.95 / minute.
Of course all the cool games are for Microsoft's Windotomy operating system, but I use Linux. Except when I have to use my Windotomy partition at work sometimes... I hate to use that partition... I don't want to catch brain worms...
Apparently I'm blind, because I have yet to see a high quality P2P network, that is available to users by means of a spyware free client. I've seen cases where one condition or the other hold, but not yet both...
Think I'll stick to newsgroups for the time being, don't need to worry about the RIAA/MPAA/NSA that way...
Sorting %SYSTEMROOT% and %SYSTEMROOT%\.. by file creation date, and looking for suspicious groupings helps, if you're bright enough to recognize and ignore legitimate Windows patch components. Having a clean and safe laptop to Google for unrecognized suspicious DLLs and EXEs helps. Manually changing the labels on HKLM\S\M\W\CV\R keys to sort the harmless from the vile helps. (I prepend "abb3wOK--" to each name; those that insist on fixed "FOO" names I create a empty key named "FOO--abb3wOK".)
All that said, if the system has been spyware infested over three months, reinstalling from CDROM or DVDROM is the most time efficient.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
If I were installing Mozilla/Firefox in a case like that, I'd just rename the icon to "Internet" or "Netscape". They don't know any better anyway. Oh, and get rid of all the "bad" icons like IE, so they have no choice. This is the Internet (well, Web, but don't open THAT can) now. The nice one that won't screw up your computer.
My dad fixes cars, and my mom fixes people. I fix their computer. Neither of us tell the other ones how to do what they do best when we're helping each other; we just tell it like it is. I do explain to my parents what's going on when they want to know, but you don't have to if that's going to be a problem.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
As these 2 publications indicate:
OS X Bible (beware Slashdot's spaces added to URL)6 4543997/qid=1102440464/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-626 1063-0197431
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/07
Red Hat Linux Bible (beware Slashdot's spaces added to URL)6 4543334/qid=1102440509/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_11_3/202-62 61063-0197431
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/07
.... Linux/OS X is a religious matter. Windoze is, after all, the mark of the Beast so anyone who does business with Billy has some explaining to do on the Day of Reckoning.
Windoze has no compiler built-in, so everything is just a binary. You install all or nothing. One of the many reasons I prefer *nix
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Do you have a point? The OP was replying to a post asking for reasons why the current version of Gmail sucks. The response gives reasons why Gmail sucks. The fact that google is Beta is beside the point unless you want to add "the fact that it is beta" to the long list of reasons why Gmail sucks.
Gmail does not come close to beating Yahoo Mail. The only thing Gmail offers that Yahoo does not is more storage. Guess what - most users dont use more than 100 MB of storage anyway. Yahoo has a better address book, a beter user interface and a working calendar. Gmail has built in spyware, intrusive advertising and perpetual beta testing.
If storage space is a problem with Yahoo then $20 a year buys you 2 GB of storage. Yahoo wins.
The bigger issue is not home PCs. There's not a lot of point worrying about compromised home PCs when your credit card information is stored on some on-line shopping system in a corporate network infected with spyware. I wonder how many business networks are adequately protected and how effective the tools and proceedures are? We're using one of the DynaComm scan products http://www.dciseries.com/, not perfect, but a lot better than being wide open. I worry about how secure other networks I have to deal with are a lot more than I worry about some home user in boonies getting a spyware P2P client.
Why not evangalize a little bit about how awesome it is and how you run it at your business/home/church to save support time. Please also mention trade offs in going with such a system.
A little sales-person work might help some people get in to this kind of stuff.
Maybe you should RTFPost. He helps them pull the fork out of their eye, on the condition that they learn to stop poking their eyes with a fork.
-sig needed: apply within
Changa hates change.
Ever hear of entropy? The more loaded your pc is with spyware, the more spyware will become loaded onto it. Eventuly, you'll just have to reformat and install linux (that last parts optional)
After releasing the latest version of Tux Paint (open source paint program for kids), I decided to post it to various download sites.
:^P
I went to Download.com, and you actually have to pay (something like $70!) to get listed!
When you're filling out the form, and get to choose how much you pay to get listed, there's a little pop-up "ROI [Return on Investment] Calculator" that you can use to determine just how much profit you'll make.
Strangely enough, it always came back $-70 for me.
Hi Why not someone create a site which identifies spyware free software. Not a Certification site or a download software site like download.com, but something which tells which software is what as it is.
...but only as an explitive.
/.er becomes confused.
Attempt to use it as a verb and the average
...or one could be the dogs, the shepherd or even the landowner.
killjoe, of course, wants to be Little Bo Peep, but that's moving off-topic.