POLITICS: Spyware: It's Going Down

why do people think making a law does anything about the problem? It's just like the "patriot act" and other crappy legislation. It's worthless and makes gullible people think things are better, while our lawmakers waste time,.

What about the CAN-SPAM acts? Prosecuting the one or two small-time American spammers. Letting the Chinese, Nigerian, Russian, Mexican, and the rest of the world's spam senders to work, because the law sure doesn't allow for blocking international servers (which wouldn't fix the problem but cause plenty more) , nor does it allow any sort of reaction-physical or electronic.

This "legislation" is of the type that's causing problems while doing nothing to fix the original issue. Is this gong to stop the Ukranian hacking attempts? Or the Chinese and North Vietnamese military-backed intrusion teams? Can we fine the skript kiddies and crackers in South America? Or attack their servers? Of course not.

Spyware is such a broad term. If you make actual spyware illegal (you know, cookies, bots that record your surfing habits, etc) then good. But that doesnt take care of the malware... The crap that should be considered viruses... They use up all your resources so that your computer cant even operate....They hijack your browser... Dial long distance numbers.. etc.

Viruses are illeagal... Did that stop it? No....

Malware (malicious software) will continue to spread and get trickier and trickier.... In my opinion, these little bugs should be considered viruses so that Norton and McAfee will pick em up... But no you gotta buy an extra product.... Or hope that Adware and Spybot S&D can take care of it.... You gotta know what you're doing to use HiJackThis

Indeed, the internet is worldwide, so too, will have to be the solution to the spyware/malware/ keyloggers/virii issue. The distinction between the "spyware/malware" and "virii" seems to be shrinking, many are much the same anymore, but I think that the browser hijackers and the sensitive data stealing keyloggers are the worst. Some are difficult to remove even with all the tools and advanced computer knowledge. One particularly notorious hijacker mutates to avoid removal. Others disable the operation of some of the popular anti-spyware programs to achieve the same goal. Most people know nothing of web bugs, but they've been around for sometime. Mostly harmless, I know of no software to defeat their function. The alleged inventor of the internet, Al Gore, and the other U.S. politicos can do nothing but put forth the appearance that they are trying to solve this issue. When I first heard of their "good" intentions, the inability to regulate the offshore folks immediately came to mind. Of course there are nations who will not cooperate with cleaning up the malware, so I'm sure it'll be with us for some time to come. You can be sure your government has undetectable spyware programs to monitor you with if your internet activities or other acts somehow make you a "person of interest".

[edit on 24-5-2005 by TheAvenger]

[edit on 24-5-2005 by TheAvenger]

Originally posted by Thatoneguy
You gotta know what you're doing to use HiJackThis

Not really.
There are many techie forums out there wose sole purpose is to help private computer users. They often tell you to run hijackThis! and walk you through using it.
And judging by the number of these forums and their members, lots of folks are taking charge of their computer's care and cleanliness.

The belief in most anti-virus / security companies, is that the next wave of viruses / worms and spware will not be just targeting a user as they have been doing in the past. It is believed that the next generation of viruses / worms will be to perform corporate espionage.
The legisation that congress is putting together seems to be a weak response to this.