Seven Ways to Fend Off Spyware

Article


1. Beware of pop-up ads that ask you to "click here." Just clicking on a link embedded in an ad can trigger a spyware download and installation, a delivery method known as a "drive by".


Thanks for the warning, but before I could read this a big nasty pop up for some kind of survey apeared , forcing me to make a decision before I could even reaad the first line or two of this article.


2. Bump your browser's default security settings from "medium" to "high" or higher. This way you'll receive an alert any time you're about to download something, which will give you a chance to back out before the damage is done. In Internet Explorer, select Tools from the top menu; under Internet Options, choose Security, then Custom Level.


Only applies to the internet explorer, the worlds buggiest, most virus and parasite prone browser. Ever notice how "STOP USING THE INTERNET EXPLORER" never makes it onto this kind of list ? It didn't make on this one either. (oh yeah ,please click on getfirefox.com )


4. Many free downloads are aimed at kids, so if you have some, consider making this a rule of the house: no downloads without your approval.


When was the last time your kid actually did as you told him / her to ? I know my sisters kids don't !


5. If you are asked to fill out a form in order to get that screensaver or play that game, know that in doing so, you are probably adding yourself to a spam list. Consider creating a second email account (there are many free Web-based services to choose from) and put that address on these forms to deflect unwanted email from your primary account. This is also helpful if you are an avid online shopper.


Odd. "Don't download freebies" and "Don't shop online...go to a reputable store" didn't make the list either. I mean , lets face it. Walk over to the shopping mall, walk into the store , buy stuff. It doesn't fit, it's broken ,w hatever, go back and return it.

Go online ... and you don't know who you're dealing with , where they are , are they going to honor their return policy ? Are they going to even be there next week ? And what about your credit card ? Entire credit card databases are being routinely stolen from major corperations this year even, and there are dozens if not hundreds of virus's out there that the first thing they do is scan your computer to see if you ever typed in your credit card anywhere on any site so they can steal it !

Odd how that doesn't get a lot of press either.


6. Install an anti-spyware program like Spyware Doctor or Spy Sweeper that not only seeks and destroys offending programs, but also detects incoming spyware before it loads and blocks it. If your PC starts acting funny, run a system scan and remove any suspicious files. If you are an active Internet user, set your anti-spyware program to do a full system scan at the end of each day.


but "Spend money on these products" did make the list.


7. Before you purchase an anti-spyware program, check whether your Internet service provider offers one. If so, you probably just have to activate it. (Go to the vendor's home page and look under Security.) "If your ISP doesn't offer it now, it probably will soon," Lambert says. You can also download Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware program, an early version of the upcoming Windows Defender, by clicking here.


And the almost apologetic "here are some free ones" listed last, at the bottom of a huge article.


Lets recap !
1... keep using the Internet Explorer , the worlds most virus and trojen prone program !
2...buy anti virus junk !
3...give your kids some instructions you know they're going to ignore !
4... don't forget to click on the pop up ad that came on this page and is giving us money !

Yeah ..ok... so who wrote this article again ?

"Legitimate" Spyware

Texas files new spyware claim against Sony BMG


The original lawsuit was filed by Attorney General Greg Abbott in November against the company for violating state anti-spyware laws by embedding software in its CDs and media player to monitor users' habits.

The new charges brought by Abbott contend MediaMax software used by Sony BMG to thwart illegal copying of music on CDs violated state laws because it was downloaded even if users rejected a license agreement.


Ok. I buy a music CD from a reputable company. Sony. I throw it in my computer.
It tries to install software on my computer. I say no , don't do that.
It installs it anyways.


ritics have said the MediaMax software allows the company to track customers' listening habits even if the customers reject maker SunnComm's terms in a licensing agreement that appears upon installation.

Sony wants to collect info on what songs you listen to, and it doesn't care if you say no to it , and it doesn't care that you are the Paying customer, you paid for that cd !
And this is a legitimate company , not a fly by nite spyware shop.

It would seem that Spyware is now going legit.
That is not to say that it is changing it's tactices, but rather , that llegitimate companies are now using it. And you gotta know, they're going to lean on governments and get laws changed to make what was once illegal suddenly legal. Thats how they usually operate.

Welcome to the new world. A simple music cd is now your enemey.

Iran: Holocaust remarks misunderstood

ATHENS, Greece -- Widely condemned remarks by Iran's president about Israel and the Holocaust were "misunderstood" by Western governments, the country's interior minister has said.


Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know that when I called the jews liars and demanded that they be wiped off the face of the planet that it would upset you !


"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, according to a report from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.


We're really annoyed that our racist kill all jews religion says one thing, history says another , and you decided to believe history over our religion ! We didn't expect that !



In a speech to thousands of people in the Iranian city of Zahedan, Ahmadinejad said during a tour of southeastern Iran that if Europeans insist the Holocaust occurred, then they were responsible and should pay the price.


True, it was european germans who commited the crimes in question, assuming you're willing to assume those crimes took place, not the iranians.


"Our question is, if you have committed this huge crime, why should the innocent nation of Palestine pay for this crime?"

1..Palistine isn't a nation, and never was.

2.. they're sitting on the land of israel that your religion drove the jews off of. (by force , murdering those that disagree)

3... whats good for the goose is good for the gander. In other words, if you believe that land is yours because you had the strength to kill off the previous inhabitants, and it's now Israel's because THEY killed off the previous inhabitants and took it back from you ... lol !

4... most non-muslims have little sympathy for a religion that demonizes and punishes non-muslims.

5... when your holy book decided to single out the jews for special attention...yah gotta know the jews now decided to single YOU out for similar attention... lol !

6.. All religions are a pack of lies, useful only for starting wars among people who otherwise really should be friends. We should just burn all those holy books and head down to the nearest pub and have a beer.

7.. don't tell my doctor I said that, I think I'm not allowed beer on all the meds I'm on.

Ottawa Boy

Microsoft warns of critical Windows flaw

Yawn. Another one ?


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday warned users of its Windows operating system of a "critical" security flaw in its software that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer.

The world's largest software maker issued a patch to fix the problem as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problem mainly affects the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.


Wow, more Internet explorer problems.


Computer security experts and Microsoft urged users to download and install the patch available at www.microsoft.com/security.


Well, I"m a computer expert , and I have a recommendation too !
Stop using the Internet Explorer ! Go and download firefox and get off that flea infested fly trap of a virus attracter !

sheesh ! I've been off of Interent Explorer for a couple of years now. No pop ups, no parasites, no virii ... and thats with no virus scanner and a 5 year out of date fire wall ! What more can I say ?


For more than three years, Microsoft has been working to improve the security and reliability of its software ...


And it aint done yet !
And it aint gonna be done anytime soon !

*Sigh*
When will people learn ?

Ebay Customer-491A1-491

I'm not an Ebay customer. I've never used it.


---------------------------------------
EBAY CUSTOMER -491A1-491
To: xxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com
----------------------------------------

I'm not any kind of ebay customer.


Your business is greatly appreciated and to show our thanks we would
like to
simply go to the following website and fill our form out and we will
award you a free gift.
http://www.peevishly.com/ebay/

Thanks Again and Enjoy!

Filling out a form sounds like a recipie for disaster actually



We're sorry ,offer is not available in your area

Breif , but painless.
Then it redirects me to some kind of money making secrets web site that does have a form you can fill out. I'll enter some bogus information and see where it takes me.

Nope. Wants to mail me stuff and won't go any farther without me actually checking my mail and picking up stuff.

wanted my real phone number too.
I'm not going to bother. It's not the advertised item in the first place and it's an obvious scam ..thats good enough.

Anti-Muslim Riots

Strike force for Sydney race riots


Racially motivated rioting erupted Sunday after thousands of drunken white youths attacked police and people of Middle Eastern appearance at Cronulla beach in southern Sydney.

It spread later with retaliatory attacks by groups of youths of Arab appearance who stabbed one man and smashed dozens of cars.


Hmmm.... looks like some idea's are just too good to keep to yourself. Muslims are not the only ones who now riot when they don't get their way. I wonder if this will be the muslim legacy ... don't get you're way ? Start a riot. If it works for them ... *shrug*

Terminated.

Gang Founder Claimed Innocence Until the End

Stanley Tookie Williams maintained his innocence right up until his death, even when an admission of guilt may have spared him execution.

Even after the courts and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a flurry of Williams' last-ditch appeals before his execution early Tuesday, his supporters vowed to prove his innocence.


This is what happens when you rob a store, have the clerk lie down on the floor ,face down , and then shoot him , twice, in the back ,with a shot gun.

You get Terminated !

ha ha... ok... enough with the swartznegger jokes. But somoene had to say the obvious !

As for the debate on the death penalty itself...
... I'm against death penalties. Bureaucrats are only interested in making their life easy , not in justice or fair play. Witness all the old folks homes where they juice the "patients" up on behavioral control drugs and such , and just wait for them to die. One can picture such a system too easily decideing "You're too much trouble, death penalty for you " and "YOu don't bug us much , ,and somone worse might come along if we let you get killed and take your spot, so we're going to have you spared..."

No death penalty for anyone. Life in prison , no hope of parole, sure. But I wouldn't trust a bureacracy with the death penalty. No chance !

Doomed Media fights back...

New technology puts fresh spin on U.S. govt spin


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From the Strategy for Victory in
Iraq to "Recovery Channel" TV on federal disaster relief, the Bush administration's spin operation is in high gear, aiming its message directly at the American public as it critiques the mainstream media


You're bypassing the traditional media ! You're a bad boy , Bush !
Or so the traditional news media reports.


There has been plenty to spin: since George W. Bush's August vacation i.... (insert half page tirade of all the things Bush has done wrong)


ok...so where's this new technology you mentioned ?


The Internet makes it easier now to bypass the Washington media. For example, to get out the government's message on hurricane relief, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency offers the Recovery Channel, which can be seen on local government access television stations in the United States.


Ok, you can't compose a decent thought. ("The internet" has nothing to do with running your own Television channel, television channels are traditional media)


In streaming video available online at http://www.fc-tv.com/clients/recoverychannel/prime.asx, there are high-gloss pieces on such matters as .....


Aha ! you finally , 80% of the way down the page... actually mention the Bush administration using a new technology some how.

Hmm.... actually...that one line blurb is the only "new technology" mentioned in this long an boring tirade against the bush administration.

Yup...this particular media is doomed and it knows it if it's writing pieces like this. Turn off the boob toobs, these guys are no longer reporting the news, they've stepped over the line into attempted brain washing and highly slanted articles.

Not that I particularily approve of Bush , but a "neutril , objective" news report should be just that. This isn't.

The cherry picker argument

Ottawa Boy

Ok. I'm a marketting company.
I make a game , say , MaJong, it's a good game, people like it.
I give it away free.

But ....

I include some tracking software in it. Shows you ads, tracks what web pages you go to things like that.

But... I tell you point blank I'm doing this, ,I don't hide it. And give you the option of not playing my game if you don't like it.


Now then, the user reads all this , downloads the game anyways, runs a virus scanner, and the virus scanner removes my tracking software but leaves the game intact. He's now playing the game without being tracked. without "paying for it" so to speak , since I intended to track his movement across the internet in lieu of charging him any money.

Who's right ? Who's wrong ? Who broke the rules ?
Interesting situation.

There is some credibility in the argument that the user should not have downloaded the program in the first place, and that the virus scanner is wrong to remove the software without removing "all" the software, even the game, because that constitutes not paying for the game in question. You are picking the cherries (the good parts) and leaving the rest behind.

There is also some credibility to the argument that such tracking software is a violation of privacy and should not have been bundled in the first place. This is the same as what happened up here in Canada with smoking. Bars and restaurants could decide for themselves if they would permit you to smoke in them, but every single bar and restaurant in the country promptly became a smokers haven. 100% of them. Why ? Because in every group of 2 or 3 or more people there was at least one smoker, and you didn't want the whole group to wander off elsewhere...so EVERY bar became a smokers paradise , instead of being able to make their own decision on the matter. The market FORCED the situation , whether they liked it or not , and the only solution was to legally FORCE it right back to where it was illegal to smoke in a bar at all.

Similarily , if you permit such advertising to be part of the bundle in any software, paid or free, then the market will very quickly FORCE every single software manufacturer everywhere to include spyware in their products. Picture buying a copy of microsoft word, perfectly legit , and it's spamming the heck out of you because everything does that.

You don't think so ? Look at television. Thousands of puportedly different stations and companies, but every single one of them has spam (advertising). Not just a little, but literally more ads than actual content. The rule of thumb is 22 minutes of show in an hour, and thats universal , across dozens of so called "competing" companies and stations. They're not competing on that point, I've noticed.

Look at cable TV. You're paying for that tv. And that means you're paying not only for the 22 min of show every hour, but the 38 minutes of ads too.

Where this takes a left turn from television , however , is that the TV ads don't crash the TV. The spam does crash and render useless your computer , however, as anyone who's ever caught a virus knows. The thing slows right down ..even to the point where it won't even boot up any more ,and you just want to toss the thing into the trash.

Aha.
Picture cleaning up all the virus's (and thus programs) from your computer and making it work.

Picture installing your favorite game ,and one or two "productivity packages" (spread sheets ,word processers, ,business applications basically). But it all comes with spy ware, and so you're system is back to square one again ..infected to a fair thee well and spamming you like crazy.

And you just cleaned it too.

Virus Writers Sue Virus Scanners

180solutions sues Zone Labs for being called 'spyware'

Zone Labs, an Internet security firm, has been sued by 180solutions. The documents filed in Washington state claim that Zone Labs wrongfully classifies 180solutions' software as spyware. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and to have Zonelabs remove the spyware warning for 180solutions' products.
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180solutions is currently the target of a class-action lawsuit filed by The Collins Law Firm. That lawsuit filed on behalf of residents in Illinois state alleges that 180solutions' software was wrongfully installed on hundreds of thousands of computers within the state and 20 million computers in the United States.
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(from their blog) We provide search assistant software that delivers consumers to highly targeted websites on behalf of advertisers when they are searching the Internet for products or services.

(from zone labs)
180search Assistant displays ads based on items you view and search on while browsing. It also opens web pages of its advertisers. 180search Assistant sends information about the websites you visit back to its controlling servers.



Ok. So , by everyones definition (except 180solutions) this is a standard piece of scumware that slows your computer down , spams you with ads, and tracks every page you visit.

Scumware's solution to this problem ?

Sue the people who scan for scumware and make them take your product off the list.

Excuse me while I cry.

Why ?

Because it will probably work.
Because there are thousands of scum ware companies out there ,a nd if they all start sueing the virus scanning companies ...well...thats gonna make business way too expensive for them... even if they lose every single law suit they can bankrupt norton , ,zone alarm , all of them.

This will suck bad.

Biting the Hand that Feeds You

Kidnappers threaten to kill Western hostages in Iraq


BAGHDAD (AFP) - Kidnappers threatened to murder four Western peace activists abducted in
Iraq last week ...... In a video that appeared on Al-Jazeera television, the kidnappers said that unless all detainees in Iraqi and coalition prisons were released by December 8, they would kill the American, British and Canadian hostages.


Lemme see if I understand this !

These guys came over to Iraq to say "War is bad , the USA shouldn't be here ! " (They're peace activists) , and the very people that benifit most from this message decide to kidnap them and will probably murder them ?

Hmmm........

I predict the USA will win in Iraq. It will win because the insurgents are stupid idiots. They kidnap and murder the people they should be winning over. They terrorize the population they hide in (thats good for having everyone and the dog turn you in the first time an american patrol drops by). They openly tell the stupidist of lies and are routinely caught at it over and over (the Iraqi foriegn minister comes to mind as the prime example of that)

It's going to be an amusing next 10 years while these idiots alienate everyone and the dog from themselves. I honestly don't believe they're compentant enough to run their own hot dog stand, let alone any kind of revolution or insurgancy.

Courage and self sacrifice are nice... brains are also required.

Ottawa NDP Canditates

Ottawa Boy

Here are the candidates for the NDP for the city of Ottawa

If you want any other party you're on you're own (heh heh heh)

Ottawa South : Henri Sader
Ottawa Centre : Paul Dewar
Ottawa Orleans : Mark Leahy
Ottawa Vanier : Ric Dagenais
Ottawa West Nepean : Marline Rivier

Get out there and vote Ottawa !
(presumably on Jan 23)

Ok ...why do I love the NDP ?

Hmmm....they once won an election in Ontario, to rule the whole province, and didn't make a mess of it. Oh the newsies all spoke about how "inexperianced" they were ,,a nd liked them to zoo animals and stuff, but no one could doubt they honestly persued their agendas of people first and to heck with big business (hmmm...newspapers are big business in canada, arn't they ? No wonder they hate the NDP)

This places them three steps ahead of the Liberals and Conservatives, both of which have very well experianced members who seem to do nothing but mess up ! (And give big business money and tax breaks)

Gee ..why would anyone like the NDP ?

The Expert Politician Speaks

Kim Campbell says Harper won't win

Ok then, lets recap.

Kim Campbell is a former prime minister of canada. (Prime Ministress ? )
She never actually won an election as Prime Minister, she became one because the previous prime minister stepped down.

She served four doomed months in which it was obvious to all that she had about a snow balls chance in heck of getting re-elected.

This is the vast experiance and expertise she brings with her when she states who will and will not get elected.

Excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing for a bit ....

Capitalism At Work

American Tax Dollars well spent, I'm sure.

Engineers confirm LSU levee study

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Government engineers performing sonar tests at the site of a major levee failure confirmed that steel reinforcements barely went more than half as deep as they were supposed to, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official said Wednesday.
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Baumy said the Corps cannot explain the disparity between what its 1993 design documents show was supposed to be there and what they've found.

The documents indicated that the steel reinforcements in the levee, known as sheet piling, went to a depth of 17.5 feet below sea level. Sonar tests indicated the pilings went only to 10 feet below sea level, meaning the flood wall would have been much weaker than intended.

of course , of course. A hurricane will NEVER happen , no one is actually going to use those levee's right ? No one will notice if we stick the steel bars as far down as they're supposed to go, we can just take the money and run....

American Capitalism at it's finest.

What was that roman phrase ? Cavaet Emptor ? Buyer Be Ware ?