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Most Web Users Unable to Spot Spyware
Ben writes "According to a Spyware Quiz conducted by McAfee SiteAdvisor , a staggering 97% of Internet users are just one click away from infecting their PCs with spyware. One interesting conclusion from this study showed that even users with a high "Spyware IQ" have a nearly 100% chance of visiting a dangerous site during 30 days of typical online searching and browsing activity."
McAfee will sell me the software to help save me.
The quiz in question has you choose which of two sites, based on screenshots, has spyware. The sites were all for things like screen savers, song lyrics, and free game downloads. That is a terrible, terrible way to judge a users capability to determine if something has spyware.
*Click*
This is just like a "spot the phishing email" quiz I saw. Just looking at a picture gives you no context. Did you get the link from a reliable source? What OS/browser are you running. (I'm definitely more willing to check out something suspicious in Safari than Internet Explorer.) Are you dumb enough to download and run something from the site.
This quiz doesn't measure anything. Where's the option for "Both of these look suspicious and I wouldn't go near either of them"?
Since the quiz requires JavaScript, and since I have that by default disabled, I think I passed the test.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
The quiz (http://www.siteadvisor.com/quizzes/spyware_0306.h tml) asks questions like "Which of these smiley download sites is safe?" The answer I'd pick is "I don't care which one is safe, I wouldn't ever download something so pointless and high risk to begin with", but that option isn't available.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Maintain an up to date hosts file - the best I've found is from here - http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm.
Blocking a site from loading prevents - well prevents if from loading. What more can you ask for? If you keep your file up to date (their most recent hosts file is 6 days old) you certainly are preventing a lot of the risk.
I came across a 7th grader who managed to load up a Win98 machine with 14 different pieces of spyware with 1 click in IE. We wiped the machine with an industrial strength removal program, installed Firefox, locked it down, and asked her to go out to the same website. NOTHING - not one single piece of spyware - got through on Firefox. At that moment, I converted for life.
Most Web Users Unable to Spot Spyware
Well, I guess that's why they call it spyware, don't they. I mean, what kind of spy would be easy to spot? Wouldn't be a very good spy, now would he.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Most web users are unable to tell what browser they are using. Or operating system, for that matter.
Support: What web browser are you using?
User: Microsoft Excel.
Support: Okay, what operating system are you using?
User: Um... Dell?
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
let's go through the quiz (if you want to see for yourself untainted, do so before reading this):
the first 4 questions have you determine which of two sites is safe, based on screen shots.
question 1: choose between two screen saver distrobution sites. like all the others, it's just a screenshot, and doesn't even show the whole front page, let alone users look at other pages. the only decernable difference is that the first one looks more professional, so heeding the remarks in the article that said most users seem to think that means it's safe, and "reading between the lines," I picked the other one, since there was no logical way to decide. I was wrong.
question 2: smilies. the one on the right looked more professional, and said "NO UNWANTED SOFTWARE" in a very easily spotted location, with big letters, and the other in regular sized font, in the bottom right, had a half cut off message that pretty clearly stated (even with incompete sentances) that it contained spyware, so I picked the one on the right, this time with some actual info to go on. I was right.
question 3: free games. the sites had no noticeable differences in professionalism, no warnings or advertising of spyware freeness either way, nothing to go on that really made any sense to actually use, so I decided that TotallyFunFreeStuff was trying to hard, and was probably hiding something, and picked the other. I was right.
question 4: Lyrics. important to note that this one used active X, so it's irrelevant to anyone who's not dumb enough to still regularly use IE anyways, which now that I mention it, I think I'll soon put a rant about McAffee and that that in my Journal (will be a first entry,) but it's to much of a tangent for this post. anyways, the one on the left looked more professional, and the one on the right had a "firefox blocked a popup" message on it, so I picked the left (entirely because of the message, I continue to mention the professionalism because the article made a stink about it.) I'd like to note that the thing I took as a tip off wouldn't be availible if I were seceptable to this at all, as it's a firefox message, which doesn't do active X. In any case, I was wrong.
the last 4 questions had you determine whether a file sharing program was safe based on the usual screenshot of the webpage.
Bearshare: site looks professional, there's a link for a "FREE Sponsored version," sponsored sets off a red flag in my mind, I say no. I'm right.
eMule: worst site design of the four astheticly, says it's open source, I've heard of it, I say yes. I'm right.
blubster: pretty sleek front page design, though it feels like a splash screen, so there's almost no information. nothing to go on really except that it says it's 100% free, which given the fact that OSS/Free software tends to advertize itself as such, and they didn't, probably meant add supported, but for some incomprehensible reason I still picked yes. I'm wrong.
Kazaa: slick page, big "NO SPYWARE" label on the font page, there's a main section for the privacy thing, which I bet a lot of people would have looked at if it were a page, not a picture, but instead just trusted it because the label was all they had to go on. I was familiar with the software though, so
No single raindrop believes that it is responsible for the storm.
Using host files to avoid certain sites is a kludge.
... better solution designed for the purpose of filtering (if one exists).
While it may be simple and effective, the hosts file is not the right place to block access to certain sites.
Blocking should be done by the browser itself or by a firewall, proxy, or some other software gatekeeper expressly designed for the purpose. Such an agent is theoretically able to perform a multitude of functions related to site blocking, such as temporary unblocking, content filtering (ie allow the HTML through but nothing else, or strip out javascript, or whatever), authentication for unblocking, management of blocked groups (eg separate black lists for porn, spyware, anti-chinese-government content).
Hosts files don't allow any of these functions, and are easy to bypass by using an ip address instead of a domain name. By skewing their function into a server filter, you are more likely to run into problems and frustrations, esp when you also want to use the hosts file for its intended purpose - to map names to ip addresses. It's going to be pretty annoying when someone makes a typo in the hosts list and you can no longer get to some site because the "connection was refused".
In short... Hosts file as a filter is an effective kludge for now, but a better solution is to use a