I have always thought of spyware as a virus. Perhaps not as destructive but, a virus none the less.
A large portion of my work is field service on home PCs. Spyware has actually become a more destructive problem than viruses for most of my residential clients who already have adequate virus protection.
Most people will have one or two spyware apps like Gator on their machines, which won't impact performance enough for them to notice. But if they have kids it's a different story. Kids download and install EVERYTHING until all the competing spyware renders the internet connection too slow to be usable. DNS requests are often hijacked and when that stops working they are dead in the water.
I get over 600 hits in an Ad-aware scan on a regular basis on machines where kids have access. I also return again and again to the same clients for the same problem. My favorites are the ones who download and install multiple "free" spyware-supported popup blockers, which just add fuel to the fire.
Yahoo.com may kill free drop boxes, but it's a different story when the scammers are paying customers.
A scammer that used to spam with short-lived excite.com drop boxes has now sent me five consecutive 419 frauds using fedminofworks.com drop box addresses (which are handled by Yahoo) over the past month.
All my complaints to yahoo.com have been rejected since "... in this particular case the message you received was not sent through the Yahoo! Mail system."
Re:WARNING Virus in article download!!!!!!!
on
Shattering Windows
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· Score: 1
Caps in subject: check Abuse of exclamation points: check Claim of authenticity: check Misinformation: check
A nice effort, but I have to deduct points for the omission of "Forward this to everyone in your address book!!!!".
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I have always thought of spyware as a virus. Perhaps not as destructive but, a virus none the less.
A large portion of my work is field service on home PCs. Spyware has actually become a more destructive problem than viruses for most of my residential clients who already have adequate virus protection.
Most people will have one or two spyware apps like Gator on their machines, which won't impact performance enough for them to notice. But if they have kids it's a different story. Kids download and install EVERYTHING until all the competing spyware renders the internet connection too slow to be usable. DNS requests are often hijacked and when that stops working they are dead in the water.
I get over 600 hits in an Ad-aware scan on a regular basis on machines where kids have access. I also return again and again to the same clients for the same problem. My favorites are the ones who download and install multiple "free" spyware-supported popup blockers, which just add fuel to the fire.
This would also finally give students formal instruction in "knowing enough to be dangerous".
Yahoo.com may kill free drop boxes, but it's a different story when the scammers are paying customers.
A scammer that used to spam with short-lived excite.com drop boxes has now sent me five consecutive 419 frauds using fedminofworks.com drop box addresses (which are handled by Yahoo) over the past month.
fedminofworks.com MX (Mail Exchanger) Priority: 50 mx2.bm.vip.sc5.yahoo.com
All my complaints to yahoo.com have been rejected since "... in this particular case the message you received was not sent through the Yahoo! Mail system."
Caps in subject: check
Abuse of exclamation points: check
Claim of authenticity: check
Misinformation: check
A nice effort, but I have to deduct points for the omission of "Forward this to everyone in your address book!!!!".