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FTC Threatens Spyware Distributors With Prison
Federal regulator Mark Pryor, in a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, has stated that spyware distributors should face harsher penalties than fees. His solution: imprisonment. "Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers in the spyware arena 'can only be described as vicious organized criminals. Many of most serious wrongdoers we observed in this area, I believe, are only going to be deterred if their freedom is withdrawn,' so it's important for the FTC to collaborate on its cases with criminal law enforcement authorities, Kovacic said."
So what about the developers that put spyware in Windows XP and I'm assuming Vista also contains spyware. Will they go to prison? Will Microsoft be forced to strip the spyware out of it's operating system?
Free software, free thought, free society.
So how do you throw a corporation in prison again?
All I can say is that it is about damn time. I worked for a summer as a tech support agent and spyware caused us more headaches than anything else; and it results in stress, time lost and possibly even monetary loss for individuals with infected computers. The fact that spyware and malware writers can usually avoid punishment (particularly considering that many spyware and malware applications are used to steal people's identities) is simply ridiculous. Good on the senator, and I hope that spyware and malware writers get what is coming to them.
So right, I hate spyware, adware, and the likes. But sending people to jail may be a little on the heavy side. Reason being, who'll decide quantitatively about the severity of the malicious code? And will there be a difference of punishment between individuals and corporations who make spyware? If a corp makes it, they'll be dragged to court resulting in a lengthy legal battle ultimately only resulting in financial loss of the corp, not necessarily prison. There cannot be a very fair system of deciding this since its a very grey area with no clear black and white lines. What some people think of as invasion of privacy could be regarded as a useful convenience by another. The best protection you could have is your common sense.
"Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time."
It's a pretty big stretch to call it spyware considering that it does absolutely nothing unless you turn it on.
How does it sound now when i substitute rape...
So right, I hate rapists, molesters, and the likes. But sending people to jail may be a little on the heavy side. Reason being, who'll decide quantitatively about the severity of the rape? And will there be a difference of punishment between individuals and gangs who rape? If a gang does it, they'll be dragged to court resulting in a lengthy legal battle ultimately only resulting in financial loss of the gang, not necessarily prison. There cannot be a very fair system of deciding this since its a very grey area with no clear black and white lines. What some people think of as invasion of privacy could be regarded as a useful convenience by another. The best protection you could have is your common sense.
By definition, spyware is one that sends 'personally identifiable information' to a target server without the user's explicit consent. It is reliably established that Windows Genuine Advantage and so-called Critical Updates from Microsoft can be classified thus...
Also data from 'crashed programs' etc.
So why is the parent modded troll?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
/cough Sony /cough
Because, contrary to normal citizens, corporations still have rights.
"It sends anonymous statistics on what packages you have installed throught apt"
Anonymous, apart from being associated with your IP address if they happen to keep it in the logs.
You have to admit that if Microsoft had a program preinstalled in Windows (even if it was turned off by default) which regularly reported every single piece of software you installed and the date you last used it.. I can barely imagine the reaction!
I'm not sure windows update sends all that much back either. As I understand it Microsoft sends the list of available updates and your machine then downloads anything it doesn't already have. But I might be wrong..
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"Why only threathen?"
Because this is Slashdot, where lately no one bothers paying attention to the article, or even the blurb (which is incorrect as usual anyway), and just tries to get their opinion in as quickly as possible for moderation.
This William Kovacic dude is a bureaucrat for the FTC. He has no authority whatsoever to make laws or throw people in jail. All he can do is threaten, much like the drunk guy on the corner (except that he's more likely to get a Congressman to listen).
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
My Dell computer calls home regularly. I didn't ask for this and I don't want it. Until my warranty expired I didn't dare remove it.
I have to keep a copy of IE available because Firefox chokes on the tracking cookies MSNBC shoves at me. And still Zonealarm reports spyware being blocked from time to time.
With this level of white collar participation, business will tell its entertainment branch, government, that this is all perfectly legal. The FTC people are great, and more power to them, but nobody is going to go to jail over it.
On the other hand, I get spyware blocking reports from Zonealarm when I use a couple of well known bittorrent sites. Now THEY should be afraid. They don't own any congresscritters.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
And let's start with Howard Stringer as a thank-you for the Sony Rootkit.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Won't have any effect whatsoever on overseas operations.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?