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180 Solutions Cuts Back on Spyware Installs
An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com is reporting that adware purveyor 180Solutions has finally decided to stop letting third-party companies install their programs for commission without 180's approval. The story says 180 announced the move after pressure from public interest groups who threatened to file a formal complaint with regulators at the Federal Trade Commission."
File anyways.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along. This time it makes sense!
"For Great Justice."
The closer we get to a spyware-free world, the better.
What good is peddling scumware if you can't get ppl to bundle it?
It'll be bundled with CHM exploits and ActiveX controls.
Interestingly, I've noticed that spyware developers only tend to change once they've developed a "better" idea, and rumor has it that a couple of original equipment manufacturers are now installing MyWebSearch by default.
Could it be that some spyware manufacturers are taking the good press while they can, knowing that their current method of installation won't really last? Could they be looking to bypass end-user installation altogether?
Do you like German cars?
So they get to continue pushing their crap and the only difference is that the CSO - Chief Sleaze Officer - must personally approve every payload turd. Fantastic. They need to be shut down, not threatened with a slap on the wrist.
Hey, I'm as glad as the next guy to kick spyware writers in the teeth, but we the slashdot readers are a group most densely than any other made up of people who are paid good cash money (sometimes sex!) to clean this crap out of people's computers. Just as Microsoft is capitalizing like a mafia on protection from viruses for money, a market created from writing crappy operating systems, we the slashdot lobby should push for "free speech" rights of the malware industry.
Why bother threatening anything? Why not just file the complaint?
rooooar
...so horribly, horribly late. Do these impotent bastards actually think this is going to make people *want* to use their software, or are they just trying for some positive PR spin? I can think of a lot of other ways clients have gotten 180Solutions' junk on their machines, and IST was only the most voracious. Let's not forget this has been going on for a few years now, too. Did they never see ISTbar installed on their own machines? That would be kinda funny, now that I think on it.
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
An advertiser decides to choose who to distribute their ads through! The cut back looks like it would be minimal. All they're doing is requiring that third parties get permission! There's a million more companies our there that will pay to have their spyware installed using dodgy techniques.
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
Comanies like this make my blood boil. I am planning to be a CS major in college, and I just can't understand how anyone could willingly work to make this kind of product. Have they actually fooled themselves into believing that one of their toolbars is helping people? I couldn't. It flattens me that someone could go on working to create something which is completely useless and harmful. I can only conclude that whoever is working at these companies must either be starvingly desperate for work or just hateful. Maybe that is where bad programmers go when they die. "Welcome to hell, now you will be forced to create spyware for all of eternity! Mwahahahahaha!". Also, why exactly should we care if this company is "turning around"? There are plenty of struggling software companies which haven't infected anyone. It seems pretty much impossible that one of these establishments could ever produce something useful. Do programmers have any kind of vigilante justice? ;)
What a crappy attitude! You're comment makes you look like an embarassment to I.T. I do get paid good money to clean up spyware/malware problems as part of my job. I do on-site PC service and consulting for a living. But like I tell lots of customers, I'd *much* rather being doing something else for my money. Frankly, it's boring, and sometimes even tedious work. Here you are, on the clock, waiting for several scanners to go through every single file and folder on their hard drives - and in some cases, doing a bunch of manual registry editing and searching too. Hours can easily go by, especially when the customer has a slower computer, and you're just praying the machine doesn't decide to freeze up in the middle of one of these scans, or else you've got to start it over from the beginning again! Meanwhile, you're starting to wonder how you're going to justify billing the person for all this time that's going by - when charging your normal hourly rate is starting to mean charging more than their system is even worth!
Just as I have no desire to join the mafia and extort money from people, I don't enjoy billing high rates to customers who were victimized by malware when all they're trying to do is struggle by on their 5 or 6 year old PC, reading their email and typing up papers.
In fact, I've often ended up trying to "do the right thing" and only charging them a more reasonable price, which meant I got seriously short-changed for my time spent. But I guess I just can't stomach the idea of taking some retired lady's entire pension for the month just because some asshat like 180 Solutions tossed their crap-ware on her computer when she thought she was just downloading a pretty waterfall screen saver or something.
What?!? Now my 180Solutions stock will be worthless.
Try a KVM switch - thanks to them, it's entirely possible to be cleaning 8 computers at a time - charge each owner 1 hour's labor, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. Housecalls extra, of course, but with the right scheduling, you can stay as busy as you want, and not feel as much guilt over your charges.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
Ok, lets get one thing straight.
Spyware = Gets information from your computer that you would not want some random schmuck knowing.
Adware = Shows an advertisement.
Malware = Does bad things to your system/configuration.
This article has successfully misused the term spyware once again. Just because adware often contains spyware, or acts as a gateway and downloads/installs spyware on yoru machine, does not make the adware itself spyware.
If you are going to use the terms, please use them correctly.
From the article: ad-serving software (labeled by some as "spyware")
Are we talking here about the same 180 solutions that would never install spyware using the holes of internet explorer?
Superb hosting 4800MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
...who works for 180solutions. Well, I didn't really know him until I flamed him on full-disclosure for working for 180solutions, but that's beside the point. This guy was totally for 180solutions! I could hardly believe my ears... er.. eyes! I reminded him of the incident where 180solutions was using browser flaws to install adware on victims' machines, yet he had "no recollection of any such event" (even though it was all over the internet and widely discussed on security mailing lists). The nerve of some individuals... Some people just deserve to be shot.
Yes, this is the same 180solutions whose software has been so frequently observed to become installed through security exploits.
Most recently -- just last week! -- I posted video proof showing 180 installing even after users specifically decline and refuse 180. Details.
Too little too late, indeed!
"UPDATE, 5:44 p.m. ET: Spyware researcher Eric Howes points out that it is perhaps clearer to say that 180 will no longer allow third parties to install its software unless the method of install is first approved by 180. More specifically, the company will no longer let third-parties install its software via "ActiveX," a component included in Internet Explorer that spyware purveyors commonly abuse to install their wares with little or no interaction on the part of the user."
What i would like to see i a S###ware scanner / remover with a LINUX runtime
Think of it you yank the harddrive do the file scan export the registry hive scan that
do your fixes import the registry hive back. reinstall the harddrive and collect your check (after testing)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
you right an estimate based on your experinece. It can be a 'book' estimate(a set of hours you charge even if you work fewer or more hours. common in the auto industry.) or real hours.
You give the customer your estimate. If they agree, then you do the job your paid to do.
Many years ago I worked in the TV repair industry. Same issue. someone brings in a 300 dollar TV and want the Tube replaced. you smile and tell them they can buy a new one for the same price. They agree, you do the work. Of course,75% of the time they never come back to pay and pick up the TV. But in your case you are acttually in their house, so it makes it harder to dodge paying you.
You have other option to help your customer as well:
1) Teach them how to do it. Now you have a 'valus add' so they feel empowered an not ripped off.
2) you tell them they can buy new pc for less, and tell them how much you charge to move their data over.
There is nothing wrong with making money this way as long as the custmoer knows the total bill(+- 10%) at the begining.
now if you just say 45 an hour, then 10 hours later you drop a bill for 450 dollars, yeah your going to have sticker shock.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
180 solutions to cut back on spyware? Isn't that a little excessive?
Billy solves his problems by calling up his mom Heather solves her problems with drugs and alcohol Daniel solves his problems with a doctor and the law, But Malcolm has his own way, and it's better than them all.. Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! And he never has the same problem twice! Whether it's a bill or a cheque arriving late, Rancid marble cheese or a steak that's second-rate, Awful TV programs or a broken Elvis plate, or his fiance who dumps him because he's gaining weight.. Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw! And he never has the same problem twice!
+1 funny, -2 overrated. Life isn't fair.
The submitter didn't read the article or misunderstood it. If you read TFA you see tht they ar still allowing spyware installs.
"
it is perhaps clearer to say that 180 will no longer allow third parties to install its software unless the method of install is first approved by 180. More specifically, the company will no longer let third-parties install its software via "ActiveX," a component included in Internet Explorer that spyware purveyors commonly abuse to install their wares with little or no interaction on the part of the user.
"
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Isn't this rather like promising you'll only beat your wife once a week from now on?
Windows Tweaks
Since users know who they are, I'm sure they'll just change their name and go right on doing what they used to do. See Gator -> Claria or School of the Americas -> WHINSEC.
of their own popups?
A dumbass who has his $2,000.
The cop said that because the court system is overloaded, nobody gives a crap, and they're hoping you just go away. The theory goes that you'll get worn out doing the "everything you can" bit, and by the time it comes to filing a claim in small claims court (which is where you might want to consider going, but I'm not a lawyer, so do your homework), you'll be too exasperated.
The proper course of action is a registered letter that is polite; ask for the money. Wait a week or two. Then send a registered letter which says (basically) "I sent you a registed letter which was signed for on X/Y/ZZZZ by ___, which asked for the money you owe me. You did not reply. You have until _/_/___ to give me my money back, or I take you to court to recover the money." Give a reasonable time period. Photocopy both letters before they're sent.
Then you sue them in small claims court. Why this quick? Because once you have a judgement, you get costs of filing plus costs of recouping the funds, PLUS assistance (I believe) from the Sherriff in recouping funds (if necessary, seizure of assets!) because it's a court order. Best part? If they don't show up- judgement in your favor, automatically.
If you go to a lot of effort or money to recoup the money before filing the case, you're much less likely to get it back. Folks- courts really aren't nearly as big a deal as they sound. Civil and small claims court are where these matters are SUPPOSED to get settled!
Please help metamoderate.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Everything I know about keeping a computer clean I learned after these evil bastards infected me. However, this is NOT worth slashdotting, any more than Bill Gates donating money to the Salvation Army is. 180's software is still malicious, insidious garbage, regardless of how they spring it on unsuspecting innocents. Big fucking deal, really.
[Mopping up Malware]
;) My next visit over there will be in a couple days when ubuntu 5.10 is released, just to make sure the transition goes smoothly.
:)
Frankly, it's boring, and sometimes even tedious work.
My neighbor, a very nice older lady, bought a semi-functional computer at a garage sale. I reinstalled Windows and put Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destory, Spyware Blaster, AVG and Firefox on it to make sure it didn't get infected. But yah, the time required to scan for malicious software was terrible.
She wanted to upgrade to something newer, so I sold her a laptop I had that runs Ubuntu Linux. I set it up to look almost identical to Windows and for her purposes (basic internet, webmail and some music) its indistinguishable; she's really happy so far and I won't have to go over nearly as often since I also showed her how to click the update indicator
I'd strongly recommend that if you're helping computer novices who just want relatively-simple tasks from their computers (e.g. web surfing, e-mail, some text/document editing, maybe even the occasional spreadsheet, simple computer games (like the ones that come with Windows), playing CDs/MP3s; that sort of thing), that you steer them clear of Windows and onto one of the user-friendly GUI-based Linux distros, like Ubuntu
Is it moral or ethical to profit from others peoples misseries?
/mbr as I could lose my job.
I just wiped off a rootkit from my system. There was no removal program that could delete it and it liked to hang out at the MBR of my drive. I reformatted my disk and lost 6 years worth of data. For those who say I should have backed everything up, I will say I can not afford a nice tape drive and a scsi card since its a home system. So I am hosed.
My rootkit got installed from a video file that used a buffer overflow to install itself. No EULA or anything. I have no clue if it was a worm or spyware but my point is many Spyware makers are no going as far as installing rootkits and hiding in the MBR so a system restore by the manufactor wont fix it. I mean CHRIST how far is this going to go?
My last job was at an AOL call center and I heard people cry and moan why their pc's slowed down with popup ads and I am powerless to say anythign besides our own anti-spyware programs. I have seen full windows restores that do not wipe these things yet for liablity can not say do fdisk
Its a serious problem and removing spyware is not very profit oriented when you are graded on how many systems you do an hour. Especially an unresponsive system which takes 40 minutes to install adaware. Not all of us have the luxury of charging $80/hr to download adaware.
Hang these F&*ckers indeed
http://saveie6.com/
I reformatted my disk and lost 6 years worth of data. For those who say I should have backed everything up, I will say I can not afford a nice tape drive and a scsi card since its a home system.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that you need a tape drive + SCSI, an external USB hard drive would suffice.
Or a $40 dvd burner.
Both of you guys show me an addordable way to store 100gigs of data and I am there.
http://saveie6.com/
$50 - dvd burner (high end price)
$15 - 25 pack dvd's (high end price)
To me that's cheap for 100gb of backup storage.
Aside from noting that an adware company ending their bundling of spyware with their product is roughly analogous to a suicide bomber deciding not to include shrapnel in his bomb when he takes out school bus, the article is mistitled. 180 Solutions is not, in fact, cutting spyware out of the picture. Reading the article reveals they are merely ceasing the inclusion of Integrated Search Technologies marvelous toolbar/browser hijackers.
Man how I love getting called in to fix a slow computer and seeing 3 or 4 of those toolbars, plus Yahoo, Google, and Lycos toolbars taking up half the screen.
- Buy a second 100 gig hard drive. - Use 20 DVDs. Less if compressed with Ghost or software like that. Not necessarily elegant, but cheap. Either of those is cheaper than losing 6 years of *my* data. But apparently not yours. The way you're complaining, backing up 20 dvd's is far more of a pain than losing all that data, so don't worry about it, it couldn't have been that important. You learn the "how much inconvenience is worth it" lesson once. Now when you rebuild your system completely from scratch you can ask the question again. Perhaps the answer will be different, perhaps not. Either way, you've made that call and there are no more complaints.
What do you consider affordable? CompUSA is selling 80GB USB drives for $99 and 160GB drives for $129...or half of that if you're willing to get Brand X hardware and go through mail-in rebate hell.
Or you can get an internal drive for the same amount of money...yank the old drive, do a fresh O/S install on the new one, and then install the old drive as a secondary and access your files from there.
But does this mean 180 Solutions is pulling a 180? ::ducks::
And lord help you when they get a new ISP with custom drivers for the modem that will only install on windows...
MacOS users are dyin' to know ;-)
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Unfortunately we can't all hope for well-meaning people to pick and choose their employers, for many people (and often understandably), they'll work for whoever will hire them at the best salary, ethics be damned.
As for adding bugs into the software, that's rather useless, all software development companies worth even a grain of salt will use versioning software such as SourceSafe, in other words, if some employee with minimal scruples decided to mess with the software, the Team Leader could just do a roll-back of the source code (restoring it to a previous state) and toss the developer who added the bug, out on his ass.
how is babby formed?
Lawyers in Illinois filed a class action lawsuit against 180 last month. Check out the article at ZDnet
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?p=655
Now we just need the same thing to happen in 49 other states, the legal fees alone should bankrupt the company! Just make sure it stays separate suits and is not allowed to merge into one big one.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I'd love to get a chance to beat the shit out of people who make spyware. I feel like I'd be really playing on their level. No legal crap, no anti-spyware program, just a baseball bat to the face. I don't like my computer being manipulated and I don't like being lied to, so I'm guessing they don't like their nose being smashed in.
Consider it your punishment for:
A: using to Internet Explorer to
B: look at Pro Wrestling sites.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Its spelt looser!
-- You're too stupid to be an atheist.
I believe AIM also installs wildtagent too... or did. I haven't updated my AIM for almost a year now though.
I ALWAYS put my data on its own partition. If I need to reinstall my OS it just isn't an issue. Keep in mind I use linux and have no idea how friendly modern microsoft os's are to such an arrangement.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
See, even without going into what's morally wrong with that attitude (it's been said already anyway), it's a piss-poor use of my time anyway.
/. pretty much _the_ standard post about it is along the lines of "yay, I got a pizza for fixing their computer". Or a beer, or a homecooked meal, or whatever. I'm sorry, unless you're a teenager without an allowance or living on a 1-2$ per hour wage in East Elbonia, that doesn't even start to be adequate compensation. Taking a part time job at McDonalds would likely pay more money per hour than that.
1. It's not the job I wanted to do. If I wanted to clean up crap, I'd be a janitor. I'm a programmer. There's a difference. I'd rather spend my time coding or playing a game, than searching through someone's registry for crap
(The same goes, btw, for crap like "I bought an ancient scanner at a flea market. Can you please make it work?" Then it turns out it's an ancient SCSI model from back in the DOS times, that nowadays the manufacturer doesn't even admit ever having sold.)
2. How much _do_ you get paid for it anyway? If I were to charge someone, say, my consultant fee for that time (as an arbitrary measure of my time's worth: that's how much I'd get paid at work for that time), chances are they could just buy a new computer, including OS, for that money.
In practice most people I know get paid some token price, if at all. Even on
And let's go back to the "if at all" part. What most people seem to want isn't to pay a professional to have their computer serviced, but to mooch some free repairs off a nerd who (in their opinion) had nothing better to do with his time anyway. Asking for money, more often than not won't get you paid, it will just get them offended. (Though on the bright side, sometimes they're offended enough to stop asking for free tech support.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"180Solutions's move comes after the Center for Democracy & Technology, a public interest group based in Washington, D.C., threatened to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over 180's business practices."
So, all that one has to do is THREATEN a complaint to get something done about intrusive and abusive software? Please complain anyway, speaking on behalf of everyone I know, we don't like their business practices!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I wonder if all employees have to use the company software. :-)
Also from their website:
Another differentiating factor between 180solutions and its competitors is that 180solutions is committed to only showing an average of 2-3 ads per day per user. We have also made the uninstall process easy for those who choose not to use 180solutions' products.
I wonder if the 2-3 ads per day is total or per user installation. Also, many programs that come with spyway/adware won't run if they can't find said spyware/adware. Consequentially people reinstall the program again getting back to where they started.
More info about the split is on their site
Warning, comments may not have been passed by the sanity department of my brain.
If these people think that users will really take the time to implement all 180 Solutions just to get rid of spyware they're crazy!
Sorry, that was terrible!
Oh, how many times have I seen 180's crap come up in an 'Adaware' search? How many hours have I spent cleaning up after their mess? I'd sooo love to be part of a class action lawsuit against these guys.
Mind you, installing stuff with the permission of the user is one thing, installing crapware through ActiveX and Java holes is another.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Having been unemployed for 13 months (not any longer, Thank God) let me tell you that If a spyware company had offered to hire me at a reasonable rate during that time I would have jumped at the offer (well, not until month 8 or so). It's nice to get up on your high horse and wonder why people do this, but when it's either code for scum or you and your family losing their home you realize that food is a lot more important than morals.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Dueling
Fuck AnonCows.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
But like I tell lots of customers, I'd *much* rather being doing something else for my money.
What is stopping you? Do you have some sort of obligation to charge people to take spyware off of their computers? Why not just get a new job, that you would *much* rather be doing?
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Well, I happen to *like* doing on-site computer service, and right now, spyware and virus infections are an unfortunate reality of the industry. Many times, I'm not even sure what's wrong with someone's machine until I actually arrive on-site and start looking at it. People just tell you things like "It crashes a lot." or "I can't get my printer to work." and that could be a hundred different problems.
The reason I point out my dislike of spyware removal jobs to customers is because I want them to be aware that all of us working as computer consultants or technicians aren't running around, overjoyed that this stuff is breaking computers and causing people grief. I had one guy, for example, who told me he suspected "computer techs like me actually *wrote* all this stuff so we could create work for ourselves". And you can hardly blame him for coming up with that notion.
We both use cable modems, so that's fortunately not a problem :)
A linguistic shift it may be, and probably not intentional at all, but rather the results of ignorance. That is not to say that linguistic shift is a good thing, however. In many cases, such shifts can be detrimental to downright nasty.
One of recent note that has been railed upon endlessly here and elsewhere has been the shift/mixing of the terms "cracker" versus "hacker". Now, mind you, the term "hacker" has almost always had a slight "edge" to it, which made it a natural to hang it onto the idea of "shifty dude who knows computers at wizard level". Some people (myself included), hated the negative undertones, and preferred the original idea and meaning of the term, in which a hacker was just someone who was very, very good at a particular "thing", typically meaning working/programming with computers. It was seen as a badge of honor. Social forces among hackers brought the term "cracker" to bear upon those who used their hacking skills for bad. Other social forces, likely stronger, though, rendered the terms "hacker" and "cracker" meaningless, and mixed them both, and since "hacker" was the older of the two and already, in the general mainstream, had negative undertones, the term "hacker" has come to mean "criminal who works with computers" - but it still has the "romantic" undertones (similar to the word "pirate" - I mean, pirates were - and still are - bad people. Pirate groups were/are akin to today's street gangs, just on the sea. But there is still a "romantic" level of the word on which people associate feelings of freedom and adventure). There is also the view among some people (hackers themselves, mainly), who view the shift as a "conspiracy" to make the idea of "great computer knowledge" something which should be feared and possibly illegal. Whether this is true or not is besides the point (I doubt it is true, at least on a grand scale), the fact is that people are uneasy, somewhat scared, of what really goes on "inside the box", and people who are able to manipulate it adroitly are viewed with caution (similar in some respects to the alchemists of old). Funny it is to us who really understand the machines, and realize they are really nothing more than a fancy, souped-up form of player-piano. I wonder if people are or were afraid of how player-pianos worked?
Thus, you can see how linguistic shifts, whether due to societal pressures, or done purposefully via someone or group with an agenda to push, can help perpetuate and in some cases cause shifts in perception and thinking. After all, language plays a great part as something with which we work in our minds to symbolically connect thoughts and ideas, and ultimately think with. Shift the language, and you shift the thoughts, and ultimately the actions. If you can understand this, and furthermore if you can understand NLP (neural-linguistic programming - essentially a method of understanding how thoughts, vocal language, and body language interact to influence your own and other's thoughts, feelings, and actions) - you can, in essence, hack your own mind and the minds of others! This isn't a new thing - it is a natural thing for most humans (autistics and Asperger's aside), but most do it unconsciously. If you understand how it really works, and are completely aware of it at all time, you can use this to your advantage.
Other such linguistic shifts, over time, can mask negative aspects of situations and ideas. This form of linguistic shift even has a name - "politically correct" - which is, in and of itself, a self-referential linguistic shifting and mixing of several terms. In essence, it means a softening of language so as not to offend another's sensibility. Unfortunately, it also has the side effect of shifting the ideas to which the terms are connected in such a manner as to make those ideas soften, or seem "better", than they really are. George Carlin has a great bit on all
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I hope that this does reduce the amount of unwanted 3rd party software on program installers. If you do have this junk on your computer, I recommend Ad-Aware.
Ditto here, King_TJ! You wrote the piece I was going to, word for word. This malware stuff will kill the usage of the internet for some folks who will just give up hope of getting only what they asked for. It has serious implications for legitimate business users of the net and their customers.
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