did you know that programs such as KaZaA install a advertising trojan or 'spy ware' on your system, it then monitors your internet browsing habits then sends it back to a central server where it is then analysed to direct marketing at you? it slows your internet connection down (dial-up users) and takes up hard-disk space not to mention the breach of privacy. :mad:
Do you think such programs should be allowed?

I know there is ways of taking them off your system such as 'ad-aware' and there is a patch that allows you to use KaZaA without the spy-ware but do you really think it necessary?

"Do you think such programs should be allowed?"

Certainly, that's what you get for using kazza, pirate. :p

i aint no pirate. honest guv'nor. ;)
i've cracked my copy of KaZaA so it does'nt have the spy-ware no more anyways. It also removes the banners and cuts down on pop-ups.

:cool:

You don't really need to crack KAZAA since there is KAZAA LITE.

Anyway on the subject of SPYWARE, think of it like this:

Every server you do a HTTP request to causes a LOG of your DNS and IP (even the time that you did the request and what pages you requested from that server)

Thats just in the logs of a WEB server like APACHE, there are systems that could have even more monitoring information that will probe your system for alsorts of information. Like how many webpages you have visited in your current session and where? (if you don't want people viewing your history to this extent CLOSE YOUR BROWSER down and open a new session regularly)

Your computer name an NETWORK group is also available, along with your MAC address (which can be used for remote exploits)

Now this is just information that can be found out through you surfing a normal website without adding any files to your computer.

In fact some companies use a strategy where they embed their spyware in the form of an Advertisement in a webpage or popup. It doesn't load anything to your system but it does log your information in a server that indexes your movements.

As for spyware loaded onto your computer, for years systems have had the ability of using COOKIES to store data. Cookies how ever were stored in such a way that any tinkerer of code could eventually find some method of utilising the information, so eventually passwords were moved from the cookies, leaving them just for small amounts of session info like what colour you like seeing something in.
(cookies are usually set "DOMAIN" based, which means they are set just to that domain name and were originally considered to difficult to fraud)

SPYWARE added by loading new software (like GATOR) now this is where you didn't ask for it and you haven't been given a little tick box saying "Remove the stuff I don't want".

In away it would be like A Female person having sex with a bloke when she only wanted a drink. (I suppose you could say that SPYWARE Rapes your system and privacy)

My personal opinion of spyware is that it shouldn't be allowed. Afterall you don't know what it's loading, and what damage it might do to your operating system. Of course if it does do damage sue the company since they had no license clause.

I loaded a spy ware detector once that was mentioned at this board. It just gave a warning. I had to turn it off though because it had problems with things like the smileys on this board. Amoung the warnings it would give would be that there was a pixel that was to small to see that was loading some sort of spyware with the opening of a web page. It was so prevalent that it almost made using the thing a nuisence because of having to acknowledge so much all the time. Almost every web page uses something that it would find. Cookies too. It is amazing how many of the pages you visit are loading things into your computer that you don't know.

I got into a music download site once and recieved a virus that loaded porn sites, gambling sites, changed the home page, adn was persistant in the computer even when you had finally gotten everything deleted. I ran registery cleaners, virus checkers, all kinds of stuff. I finally reloaded the hard drive to get rid of it. No fun.

That sort of virus would supposedly from somer persons perspective infect your win.ini file. More likely though is that the SWAP file that windows creates to run (it's used when you open a file thats bigger than your RAM, or when your processing quantities of data that merges use of your ram with harddrive.)

I found this out because there is something you can place into your Autoexec.bat file that Deletes everything from your Temp folder (which is useful, as cleaning your temp folder should be apart of anyones maintainence.)

What I found out was when you install something, the logical thought is the program is reading from the TEMP folder, but in reality the program stores what ever information needs to be set (when it asks to reboot) in the SWAP file.

If you find yourself suffering that problem ever again, you might think about booting your system and going into commandline and deleting the SWAP FILE. (You might have to create a blank one to replace it afterwards)

But that should be enough to get rid of such a problem.

This is about the only situation where I feel "someone"should step in and put limits on the use of programs like these. My recent encounter with one of the ad-trackers resulted in a corrupted kernel32.dll file when the program was removed via the Windows 2000 pro removal method. Now, I am unable to access any internet site that requires a cookie be dropped. Any suggestions on how to fix this are more than welcome at

d_reim@hotmail.com

In my opinion, we, the program/site users, should be given the option to install or not install ANY software. As a guest in the host's home, I would hope that my host would not leave me with any unwanted visitors when I left.



SPIDER189

Ach, the world will eventually become a George Orwell 1984 anyways. And we will all be devoured and consumed by the glorious death to Entropy!!!!!

So live with it. The thing about marekting is that you gotta mentally train yourself to ignore it. Or you can get Mozilla, and set the settings so that it disables popups.

you can disable pop-ups in Opera too

Originally posted by Zero
Ach, the world will eventually become a George Orwell 1984 anyways. And we will all be devoured and consumed by the glorious death to Entropy!!!!! So live with it. The thing about marekting is that you gotta mentally train yourself to ignore it.

Sorry...can't agree that the world will become 1984...it will if we all sit on our duffs and let it...

I can ignore ads in popup forms or mass mailings or whatever. My central objection is that if I do not give permission for you to be in my computer, you should not be there. In my mind, Spyware is similar to stalkers and peeping Toms...would you allow someone to stand at your window and watch what you are doing "for information gathering purposes"?? Would you allow someone to follow you wife/son/daughter "to determine buying trends"?? Of course not. So why are we permitting these ad agencies invasive rights to our computers??

We all have a right to our privacy and we better protect it and stand up for it or it will be taken away either actively or by omission of action on our part.

SPIDER 189

I use Kazaa-lite. Apparently it doesn't have any spy ware built into it. But after doing a run through with Ad-Aware it found a file linked with kazaa lite. Is this a file thats supposed to be there just so lite can run but doesn't actually take any information? Thanks.

you are right. It is a part of how the real kazaa identifies itself to the network. It's a dummy file, does nothing.

Originally posted by Avatar
you are right. It is a part of how the real kazaa identifies itself to the network. It's a dummy file, does nothing.

Thanks. Just wanted to make sure.

Originally posted by wet1
I loaded a spy ware detector once that was mentioned at this board. It just gave a warning. I had to turn it off though because it had problems with things like the smileys on this board. Amoung the warnings it would give would be that there was a pixel that was to small to see that was loading some sort of spyware with the opening of a web page. It was so prevalent that it almost made using the thing a nuisence because of having to acknowledge so much all the time. Almost every web page uses something that it would find. Cookies too. It is amazing how many of the pages you visit are loading things into your computer that you don't know.

I got into a music download site once and recieved a virus that loaded porn sites, gambling sites, changed the home page, adn was persistant in the computer even when you had finally gotten everything deleted. I ran registery cleaners, virus checkers, all kinds of stuff. I finally reloaded the hard drive to get rid of it. No fun. Was it lop.com? If so Adaware can remove that.

Whenever I go to hotmail and log in, MSN makes a popup of the homepage. Any reason why it does that?