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Sneak Peek At Microsoft Anti-Spyware

Posted by timothy on from the takes-one-to-know-one dept.

Ant writes "Broadband Reports mentions Neowin's sneak peek of Microsoft's upcoming anti-spyware software recently acquired community favorite Giant spyware; Microsoft has code-named their re-hashed version of that software 'Atlanta.' It is currently in an internal beta test. There are screenshots of the application in action."

15 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. Sample by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Warning: Firefox detected! - Internet Hijacker - Automatically deleted for your protection.

    1. Re:Sample by __aatgod8309 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Fixing IE would involve such a substantial change to both itself and windows that it won't happen. You've seen how long it took to provide the 'fixes' in SP2 for XP, and in the end it diverted staff from development of Longhorn. Imagine that applied to something even more fundamental to windows, like redesigning ActiveX to be easier to manage, or making IE an optional windows component.

      That kind of work would be probably be even harder than writing Longhorn, and we've seen how long that's taking. And that would most likely require a development team as big as that of Longhorn, if not bigger. And they wouldn't be getting paid for it - so what do you thing the chances are of MS doing that?

    2. Re:Sample by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      How is IE a moving target at the moment? If IE stood still much more than it already is the apes will start to worship it as a monolith.

  2. Ironic methinks. by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    At the risk of sounding trollish... I think it's more than a bit ironic that MS is now going to bundle spyware when a good chunk of spyware is installed thanks to bugs within the present code. Why not deal with existing issues first?

    Oh wait, new bells and whistles are good PR and prompt upgrades.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Ironic methinks. by beacher · · Score: 5, Funny

      (Lives in Atlanta) - I just think it's funny. Sherman burned Atlanta (almost) to the ground. I just wonder if someone will name a piece of spyware Sherman and watch it raze Atlanta again....

      THE SOUTH SHALL FORMAT AGAIN!
      -B

    2. Re:Ironic methinks. by CritterNYC · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also, it's hard to keep people from clicking "yes".

      You don't have to click YES or ACCEPT to get spyware in IE. All you have to do is visit a specific website... or a website that's been hacked... or a website that shows ads from a network that's been hacked... and it will auto-install it for you through one of IE's lovely unpatched exploits.

      I just cleaned 12 off my sister's Win98 laptop and then promptly installed Firefox and Thunderbird.

      --
      Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
  3. Hate to break it to Microsoft... by CypherXero · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...but there's already plenty of free alternatives out there. Also, just stop using Internet Explorer. That move right there will cut down at least 90% of all spyware/adware.

    1. Re:Hate to break it to Microsoft... by zbyte64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes.... just tell that to the normal users that simply use their computer for pr0n or for simple searches
      Most people dont know where to get software like firefox or spyware removal - let alone even know it exists
      Microsoft will either bundle it for free, increasing the value of their OS (again most people don't know about alternatives) or MS will charge for it, making more $$ - in the end, average joe will think MS is their hero for saving them from spyware (o the irony)

    2. Re:Hate to break it to Microsoft... by pla · · Score: 5, Informative

      but there's already plenty of free alternatives out there

      I personally have always used (and liked) AdAware and Spybot, and as much as I hate to admit this about purely commercial software... I recently had a chance to try Giant.

      Slower than a DOJ antitrust proceeding against Microsoft, and takes a similarly budensome level of system resources (100% CPU for over half an hour on a Pentium-M 1.7GHz!), but damned if it didn't find two problems both AA and SB had completely missed (completely as in, not just left inactive fragments lying around, but real live active spyware).


      Also, just stop using Internet Explorer. That move right there will cut down at least 90% of all spyware/adware.

      Agree completely. The above-mentioned two problems that Giant caught - Well, let me first say that I use Mozilla almost exclusively, only loading MSIE (in a maximally-locked-down configuration) perhaps once a month for sites that absolutely will not work (even with the user agent switcher add-on) in Moz/FF. And both the spies that Giant caught had latched on to MSIE.

      Sad. I mean, good to see MS address (one of) their current major weaknesses; but sad that they would use something comparable to an antivirus scanner rather than just fix the security flaws that lead to massive spyware infestations in the first place.

      What ever happened to SP2 as the end-all to MS's security flaws?

  4. Unacceptable! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    As a resident of Atlanta, I resent and am offended by this nomenclature. Where do I file my complaint?

  5. Re:And the motto to go with it... by symbolic · · Score: 5, Funny

    "They won't be spying, because we will.

  6. Heh by bharatk · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oxymoron (n) A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in Microsoft Anti-Spyware.

  7. And so as I type this... by Incoming9000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. thousands of mallicious coders are linning up to grab a copy of their newest target.

  8. This is kind of stupid... by realmolo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The solution to the spyware/malware problem is simple, as demonstrated by Firefox-

    Disable ActiveX controls.

    Is there any legitimate reason for a non-intranet website to use them? Whenever a site requires ActiveX controls to work, I think "Boy, they hired an bunch of idiots to design their site."

    They should just modify IE so that ActiveX flat-out doesn't work on any site that isn't explicitly and MANUALLY allowed to by the user or network admin.

  9. SP2 still enables AX by default by steve_l · · Score: 5, Interesting

    on a clean SP2 build (that is the MSDN WinXP+SP2 all in one install), Prompted ActiveX download is still enabled for the internet zone.

    If you turn that off, windows update stops working, as http[s]:*.microsoft.com is in that zone.

    I dont call that locking down the browser, To secure IE (even if you only use it for windows update)

    1. disable AX download in internet zone

    2, edit trusted zone site security to medium. Like you ever need a 'run anything, unprompted' zone.

    3. add https:*.microsoft.com and http:*.microsoft.com to the trust zone

    4. uncheck the 'require https in trusted zone' switch

    the aim is to redefine "trusted" from "total access" to "prompted download active X controls", which is a serious enough undertaking that I dont want to enable it broadly. Only MS sites and spyware vendors seem to use it, after all.