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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Many of most serious wrongdoers we observed in this area, I believe, are only going to be deterred if their freedom is withdrawn,' so it's important for the FTC to collaborate on its cases with criminal law enforcement authorities, Kovacic said."
This is a really good idea. Spyware makers are the worst in terms of computer crime.
I remember, not too long ago, when pricks around the world wrote dialers for people with dial-up connections. Dialers, once installed, would route someone's call to their ISP through some insanely far-away place (usually pimples in the pacific) with insanely high long-distance costs. The people who wrote the software would then split the profits made from the long-distance call with the corrupt operator of the far-away places' phone company. The effect was to leave people out-of-pocket by a huge amount (hundreds or thousands of dollars). If the target got the long-distance charge removed by the local phone company, the local phone company would have to eat the charges.
The point of the above is to underline the character of crimes committed: it's pure theft. Modern spyware either seals people's browsing habits or personal information, so it's a little less direct, but it's still a theft.
I think spyware writers are more foul than virus writers: while virus writers do what they do for the technical thrill and bother a lot of people in the process, spyware writers do it just to get money.
Their motives are base, their methods are underhanded, and they should go to jail.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
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."
Send them to something far, far worse than a Turkish prison. Chain them in the RIAA lobby with no pants, clutching a pirated CD of Bing Crosby singing Christmas carols.
Why the pirated CD?
Since when does the RIAA need evidence to screw people?
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How is that spyware? It sends anonymous statistics on what packages you have installed throught apt, and you have to choose to enable it.
It does exactly what it claims it does, and you really have to go out of your way to enable it (add/remove software>preferences>statistics>enable popularity contest )
Right under the checkbox there's a clear explanation of what it does:
Compare that to Windows update, which 'inspects your system' every time you update, and you have no way to know what exactly it's inspecting, and what it's sending back to MS.
You're probably trolling, and I'm probably wasting my time, but someone modded you up, so I guess at least one person believed you.
Easy: throw the CEO in prison, or the board of directors, or other folks in upper management who're responsible for the crimes the company committed.
FWIW, this seems like a good idea, too. I'm not a fan of prison terms in general, but I also think that they're quite good at deterring white-collar crime (fraud etc., as opposed to blue-collar crime where you actually have to get your hands dirty - armed robbery, battery, and so on). The problem with penalty fees is that they're paid by the company, not the individuals who're actually responsible - so even if worst comes to worst and if the company will go bankrupt, they'll just go and start another one.
It's like punishing mafia hitmen but letting the actual dons go free - they'll just hire new hitmen and continue like before. But as soon as the directors of a spyware company are *personally* threatened with punishment for their deeds (and let's face it, it *is* upper management that is responsible for these things: the company does not have a life of its own that goes beyond the people working in/for it, and doesn't just decide to commit crimes on its own), most likely will stop and comply with the letter of the law, at least.
butter the donkey
/cough Sony /cough
By your logic, you are spyware. Since you know about popularity-contest, you obviously use Debian or Ubuntu. IMFORMATION LEAK! YOU ARE SPYING ON YOURSELF.
Wait. Does that argument make me sound like a complete and utter idiot? Now you know how you sound.
My other car is first.
The article is clearly about people who write and distribute malicious programs for the criminal purpose of stealing information, and thereafter actual property and/or money. We can all complain about some aspects of Microsoft's software (yes, really), but its 'spying' is nothing like the same. Legislation may yet change their behaviour here, but suggesting they are in danger of prison is hyperbole.
So introducing the subject is going to divert discussion off-topic, and either just another attempt at starting a fan-boy argument, or yet another boring round of Microsoft bashing.
Ya, but you gotta admit that Bing Crosby gives it a romantic touch. What a voice . . .
I am not a crackpot.