Text 22363, 68 rader
Skriven 2006-10-12 09:50:01 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 22338 av CHARLES ANGELICH (1:123/140)
Ärende: Vista anti-piracy
=========================
In article <24301$WIN95@JamNNTPd>,
 "CHARLES ANGELICH -> RICH WONNEBERGER" <1:123/140> wrote:

 CA> 123ed17e8982
 CA> win95



 CA> Hello Rich -

 >>> other applications. Spyware is intrusive and annoying but
 >>> nothing as potentially destructive as virus or
 >>> worms/trojans. IOW spyware is no big deal really.

 RW>> So when spyware sends some ones banking or financial info
 RW>> out its not a big deal?

 RW>> I DON'T THINK SO

 RW>> Just my opinion.

 CA> If there is a spyware program written for that purpose, then
 CA> yes you would be correct. I've never heard of any spyware doing
 CA> that but I can't be everywhere and read everything so maybe I'm
 CA> just ignorant of the complexities of spyware but ... I DON'T
 CA> THINK SO. ;-)

I'm at least partly in agreement with Charles on this one... MOST common
spyware is more annoying than dangerous... most such programs pop up
ads, redirect the IE home page away from the user's choice, maybe report
on webpages visited-- annoying but rarely dangerous.

Although the capability certainly exists, I don't know of any widely
spread spyware that is actually probing the users' hard drives for
credit card or bank account numbers... or acting as a keylogger storing
every keypress for later reporting back to some evil mothership.

You might want to check http://www.stopbadware.org/home/reports for
in-depth reports on a couple of dozen programs that install 'badware'...
picking one at random (Funcade), the report notes that it installs
adware "which provide ads based on the user's surfing habits", resulting
in pop-ups. As well, it changes the default 404 and DNS error pages in
IE. it also installs a component called 'Downloader" that can (according
to the report) "without the user's knowledge, download and install new
components onto the user's system. The inclusion of this component, and
its ability to function as a Trojan horse, are not disclosed to the
user".

I'm not defending this sort of malware, and I certainly don't want it on
my system... and programs like this 'Downloader' have the potential to
be (mis)used in all sorts of ways.

Nevertheless, besides being annoying, the only real damage caused by
such infestations seems to be when so many of them are running at the
same time on a single system that performance grinds to a halt.

Part of the problem, I think, is that we lack a precise vocabulary for
this 'badware'... programs that report back web-surfing behaviour in
order to target pop-up ads are lumped in the same category with software
that might, in theory, be spying for financial information in order to
empty a user's bank account.

I know lots of users infected with software that generate pop-up ads...
I don't know of anyone who has had their bank account emptied as a
result of 'spyware'.

--- MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.1 (Intel Mac OS X)
 * Origin: Ad Hoc (1:123/789.0)