D
doghead
The following lengthy quote explains a disagreement our
antispyware heroes at Microsoft have with - well,
everyone else. The quote is lifted from the results of a
quiz (advanced section) posted on the Microsoft spyware
subsite.
::::Lengthy quote begins::::
3. True or false: all spyware is "bad."
Your answer: A. True.
Sorry, that is not the correct answer.
Correct answer: B. False.
Unlike other forms of software, which are usually
categorized as good or bad, some spyware can be
categorized as both or neither. With the exception of
malicious behaviors, many behaviors could have legitimate
purposes. For example, antivirus or firewall software
that automatically starts (autostarts) without your input
can be useful for helping to detect and block malware. In
other cases, system services (such as print spoolers) may
run in the background with limited or no user interface
but have widely-accepted, legitimate purposes. To learn
more, read our white paper: Windows AntiSpyware (Beta):
Analysis Approach and Categories.
::::End lengthy quote::::
The term "spyware" does not refer to normal system
automation and certainly doesn't apply to set-it-and-
forget-it security software. Spyware is by definition
malware, to use a redundant term that refers to unwanted
and damaging software. Spyware is specifically data-
collection software that is either wholly unwanted or has
arrived as part of a user-installed application with
unwanted add-ons and/or hidden, misrepresented,
underexplained, misleading components that may but do not
necessarily include unremovable, damaging, or self-
reinstalling data-collection components. Spyware is
never beneficial precisely because it is unwanted and
unbargained for; if a sleazy operation like Gator/Claria
includes basic information about its tactics only in the
deepest bowels of some buried-online legalese seven-
point, that's not enough disclosure if the majority of
users have no understanding of what awaits them when they
allow a supposedly above-board program to load.
Nothing stops software vendors from practicing their
trade in a transparent, respectable way. Spyware takes
its "spy-" prefix from its below-board methods. An
overly enthusiastic approach with multiple-domain web-
page loadings and user-tracking cookies can be spyware;
right now, all the big-name sites on the internet hit
novice users with spyware hookups to ad networks, for
example. Only by experience and browser manipulation can
users opt out of Microsoft's, Yahoo's, etc. spyware and
that of their "partners", whose sites normal users never
willingly visit except to complain about abusive
practices.
If the parasite - I mean the web-ad - industry wanted to
step out of the shadows, it would offer users an
attractive opt-in before it started showing them any
ads. After opting in, these users could then receive
what is now their current web experience on the up-and-
up. Instead, all these companies steal their time on
people's screens and then pay the price when guys like me
just block doubleclick and overture and the rest from
their networks.
When a company like Claria claims to remake itself by
hiding behind a new name, it's only the unaware who get
taken in. But that's the American-Republican vision of
the New World order, isn't it? Gain power by preying on
the distracted, the uninterested, the impaired, and the
unwitting, and then beat back criticism of the same by
changing names, declaring bankruptcy, baldfaced lying,
burying documents, deleting evidence, and torturing the
local language until our eyes cross and yes means no.
That's the way capitalism works, right? Every weasel for
himself - or every weasel company for itself?
If our friends at Microsoft can't distinguish a
difference in kind between deceptive plop like
Claria/Gator and firewalls and print spoolers, they have
no business selling or distributing antispyware software
or any other software designed to protect users. In
fact, Microsoft has often needed its own social compass
restraightened. At minimum, it has no business *selling*
security software when 95% of OS vulnerabilities resolve
to bad software design and delivery practices it embraced
and pioneered in the go-go '90s. Microsoft owes users
the fundamental restitution of a sane computing
environment. Right now, computing is insane, thanks to
Microsoft and to the Clarias of the world, and the "open-
source" pinheads who spend their free time writing
viruses because they envy Microsoft its weasel money.
But the buck has to stop somewhere. Print spoolers are
not the same category of application as spyware. I'm
sorry. Up is not down, Bush is not honest, and empty is
not full. Enough of this endless self-serving BS.
Microsoft has people who know how to run a respectable
company (and they do not favor integrating Claria as the
first step). Stop the doubletalk, the doublethink, and
the doubleclick, and just give us honest software that
does what it's supposed to do - *well* - and not
something else.
doghead@
antispyware heroes at Microsoft have with - well,
everyone else. The quote is lifted from the results of a
quiz (advanced section) posted on the Microsoft spyware
subsite.
::::Lengthy quote begins::::
3. True or false: all spyware is "bad."
Your answer: A. True.
Sorry, that is not the correct answer.
Correct answer: B. False.
Unlike other forms of software, which are usually
categorized as good or bad, some spyware can be
categorized as both or neither. With the exception of
malicious behaviors, many behaviors could have legitimate
purposes. For example, antivirus or firewall software
that automatically starts (autostarts) without your input
can be useful for helping to detect and block malware. In
other cases, system services (such as print spoolers) may
run in the background with limited or no user interface
but have widely-accepted, legitimate purposes. To learn
more, read our white paper: Windows AntiSpyware (Beta):
Analysis Approach and Categories.
::::End lengthy quote::::
The term "spyware" does not refer to normal system
automation and certainly doesn't apply to set-it-and-
forget-it security software. Spyware is by definition
malware, to use a redundant term that refers to unwanted
and damaging software. Spyware is specifically data-
collection software that is either wholly unwanted or has
arrived as part of a user-installed application with
unwanted add-ons and/or hidden, misrepresented,
underexplained, misleading components that may but do not
necessarily include unremovable, damaging, or self-
reinstalling data-collection components. Spyware is
never beneficial precisely because it is unwanted and
unbargained for; if a sleazy operation like Gator/Claria
includes basic information about its tactics only in the
deepest bowels of some buried-online legalese seven-
point, that's not enough disclosure if the majority of
users have no understanding of what awaits them when they
allow a supposedly above-board program to load.
Nothing stops software vendors from practicing their
trade in a transparent, respectable way. Spyware takes
its "spy-" prefix from its below-board methods. An
overly enthusiastic approach with multiple-domain web-
page loadings and user-tracking cookies can be spyware;
right now, all the big-name sites on the internet hit
novice users with spyware hookups to ad networks, for
example. Only by experience and browser manipulation can
users opt out of Microsoft's, Yahoo's, etc. spyware and
that of their "partners", whose sites normal users never
willingly visit except to complain about abusive
practices.
If the parasite - I mean the web-ad - industry wanted to
step out of the shadows, it would offer users an
attractive opt-in before it started showing them any
ads. After opting in, these users could then receive
what is now their current web experience on the up-and-
up. Instead, all these companies steal their time on
people's screens and then pay the price when guys like me
just block doubleclick and overture and the rest from
their networks.
When a company like Claria claims to remake itself by
hiding behind a new name, it's only the unaware who get
taken in. But that's the American-Republican vision of
the New World order, isn't it? Gain power by preying on
the distracted, the uninterested, the impaired, and the
unwitting, and then beat back criticism of the same by
changing names, declaring bankruptcy, baldfaced lying,
burying documents, deleting evidence, and torturing the
local language until our eyes cross and yes means no.
That's the way capitalism works, right? Every weasel for
himself - or every weasel company for itself?
If our friends at Microsoft can't distinguish a
difference in kind between deceptive plop like
Claria/Gator and firewalls and print spoolers, they have
no business selling or distributing antispyware software
or any other software designed to protect users. In
fact, Microsoft has often needed its own social compass
restraightened. At minimum, it has no business *selling*
security software when 95% of OS vulnerabilities resolve
to bad software design and delivery practices it embraced
and pioneered in the go-go '90s. Microsoft owes users
the fundamental restitution of a sane computing
environment. Right now, computing is insane, thanks to
Microsoft and to the Clarias of the world, and the "open-
source" pinheads who spend their free time writing
viruses because they envy Microsoft its weasel money.
But the buck has to stop somewhere. Print spoolers are
not the same category of application as spyware. I'm
sorry. Up is not down, Bush is not honest, and empty is
not full. Enough of this endless self-serving BS.
Microsoft has people who know how to run a respectable
company (and they do not favor integrating Claria as the
first step). Stop the doubletalk, the doublethink, and
the doubleclick, and just give us honest software that
does what it's supposed to do - *well* - and not
something else.
doghead@