Adware Spreads Through Myspace

Sandbagger writes "Here's an interesting problem for MySpace — groups of websites that entice MySpace users into placing videos onto their profile pages (under the guise of 'free content'), without disclosing a key piece of information that might make them think twice. When someone visits one of these profiles carrying the video, a DRM acquisition box pops up and attempts to install Zango adware. In all likelihood, the profile owners don't even know these videos are doing this to their visitors. The end result is an Adware affiliate effectively removing himself from the distribution chain and letting kids promote these videos instead, in a strange example of viral marketing gone wrong."

Comments

On that note...

[HaloZero]

Upon refreshing the main page, I found a slide-out Microsoft flash ad. That thing was annoying as hell, and it keeps coming up.

On Adware and Myspace: it was a pandemic waiting to happen. One of those nasty traits of a large populus, is that when something becomes sufficiently commonplace and comfortable, it becomes an easy target. It's my understanding that myspace is riddled with holes, bugs, etc. That being said, it's only a matter of time until those are found, and exploited.

Though I understand it doesn't end with Myspace, as the attack used is not explicitly limited to that social networking service; it simply is the vehicle for the delivery, and a prime candidate with a vulnerable userbase.

Unrelatedly, I heard a random statistic that said that some asinine percentage of the net's streaming video traffic was due to Myspace. I brushed it off, as, well, that's a sortof silly thing to take to heart, but I wonder if there's any truth to it.

Re:America really is growing daft

[lawpoop]

"People look at me like I'm a Nazi because I seriously don't think most Americans should be enfranchised. Let's face an ugly truth. Our founding fathers were right: most people are unfit to vote."

The reason people look at you like you're a Nazi is because once you start with "these people aren't fit to vote, I know what's best for them", then you start feeling entitled to make other decisions for them, such as what kinds of jobs they can hold, where they can live, and whether they are allowed to reproduce. The 'slippery slope' card is one that's too often use where it's not warranted, but this is a place where it's obviously warranted, by historical precedent.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: if you think you know better than me as to what's right in my life, fuck you. You have no place making decisions for me, or anyone else. Society really goes to hell, as in labor camps and mass exterminations, when we let right-wing ideologies like yours come into power. We've fought long and hard to get where we are today, and it makes me sick to hear you say that just because you don't like myspace. It's a friggin' website, for crying out loud!

Futhermore, the founding fathers didn't say that most people are unfit to vote. They specfically left out particular groups based on race, ethnicity and gender -- women, blacks, Indians, etc. They did not say that most people are unfit to vote. I would bet that you know, or at least know of, women and blacks that are certainly fit to vote by your standards, just as there are women and blacks that are unfit to vote by your standards. The problem comes when someone starts thinking their standards are the ones we should use to disenfranchise voters.