Adventures in Spyware

Poststructural Pub
1

I’m certainly impressed by the astronomical growth of the spyware problem in recent months. Just had an interesting experience to share.

For a long-time, I’ve used Ad-Aware, a very popular free program, to scan for spyware. It seems to work pretty well. I kept noticing, though, that each time I would run it, it would find more and more spyware and I was having to run it more and more frequently to keep spyware minimized. This was due to the growth of the spyware problem.

So, I downloaded an additional anti-spyware thing called Spyware Blaster (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/) . It’s also free although you can subscribe for a modest fee to enable it to download updates automatically, which is what I did. This program is designed to block spyware before it ever gets loaded on your computer. It appears to work pretty well, because as soon as I started using it, the amount of spyware detected by Ad-Aware was reduced dramatically.

So, I’ve been keeping this blocking program, Spyware Blaster, running and then would periodically run Ad-Aware to get rid of the few spyware programs that managed to get around Spyware Blaster.

Next, I downloaded another free program called Spybot: Search & Destroy. I found it a bit clunky, but occasional it would spot spyware that would get past both Spyware Blaster and Ad-Aware.

Then today, someone told me that Microsoft has a new Spyware program. It’s called AntiSpyware and it’s in Beta1. I went to download.com and downloaded it and ran it. I ran the quick scan and it very quickly found two “high-risk” spyware things that had gotten around all three of the existing spyware programs I have installed. As I write this, I’m now having it do a “deep scan” to see if there’s yet other stuff.

So, for now at least, I’ve settled on this anti-spyware protocol:

Run Spyware Blaster in the background to block loading of spyware. (Once loaded, you don’t have to run it. If you set it for auto-update (by subscription) you can completely ignore it).

Run Ad-Aware about once a week to cull out the spyware that gets by Blaster.

Run Microsoft’s program about once a week to cull out even more.

Just thought I’d share.

2

Dale, I’ve run Linux on my desktop for some years now (first RedHat Linux and now Gentoo Linux). I can safely say that I have never had to deal with either Spyware or viruses.

3

A person at work tried the new MS AntiSpyware on his home PC. It found a “high-risk” file which he had it remove. Afterwards, his McAfee antivirus software wouldn’t work until he did a complete restore. YMMV. (Personally, I’ll stick with my Mac.)

Cheers,
John

4

A comment about the popular bilief that Linux is shielded from viruses and spywares. There are two reasons why Linux doesnt have a fraction of of viruses and spywares found on Microsoft OSes. First of all, 90% of installed PCs in the world run Windows. That makes it a much better target for hackers and marketers, this is where the money is really. Also, hackers usually tend to defend Linux and open source, so a “good” hacker will develop a virus that runs on Microsoft and will be seen as a “hero”, but he’ll be seen as a “traitor” if he develops a virus on Linux.

I don’t like Microsoft, but I think that as Linux becomes more popular, you’ll see a hell load of viruses and spywares poping up.

5

Quite correct re the percentage of desktops deployed, but incorrect, I think, re the “hackers” being Linux users targetting Microsoft. I believe that the majority of hackers targetting MS desktops with viruses, malware etc are themselves MS users. Also, the internal security structure of Linux (and Unix) is very different to that of the MS OS, with a much clearer seperation of admin type privileges.

Saying this, I believe you are correct that as Linux becomes more mainstream, it will be the target of hacker and criminal attention. As to whether they will succeed, we’l have to wait and see…

6

Of course you’ll stick with your Mac. Of course you will run Linux. It just turns out that I have Windows.

7

Dale, you can try out linux without affecting your current MS Windows installation:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Knoppix is a Linux “Live CD”, meaning that it runs entirely off the CD and doesnt touch the hard drive in your computer. And its free.

8

Waddaya mean “just turns out”? What about free will?

9

:wink: Maybe in his free will, Dale made the decision to go with the inferior Windoze…oops, I mean WINDOWS machine. Despite the fact that he made the wrong choice, he still did it Wisely (as Dale does with EVERYTHING )

10

I’m now having it do a “deep scan”

Wow…that scan sounds…um…deep. Oops, wrong thread.

I use AdAware myself. For some reason, I tried this antispy thing Earthlink conjured up, and after a few sessions, it wouldn’t let me open anything. I uninstalled as quickly as I installed.

You know these sites that plant stuff on your computer so that you get entangled in a web of pop-ups promoting antispyware software, and it’s almost impossible to stop them until you actually buy the software? (There are so many evil genius biz models out there, it’s mind-boggling)

Well, I was going to write that I thought Spy Blaster was one of those apps, but I just checked and see that I’m mistaken. Apparently Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter are the culprits I was thinking of. I once got caught in one of these pop-up tangles. Fortunately, I knew enough to address the issue immediately, and a bit of research led me to AdAware. I haven’t had a problem since.

Hmm. I better go run it now.

11

Ok, I downloaded knoppix and am trying it out. This isn’t exactly my first experience with it though. This is the first time I’ve been able to run knoppix though. When I tried it last year, it wouldn’t run on this machine. The only cd version of linux I could get to run that had the stuff I need was dynabolix.
Looks pretty good so far. It came with the Konqueror browser, which doesn’t look or act too different than firefox, so I’m getting by.
Time to see how much stuff it detected and what is and isn’t working.

12

Just a head’s up: I read an article on CNN about Microsoft’s new spyware finder - whatever the name is (the AntiSpyware). Apparently it’s free now but they are going to eventually start charging for it. I guess the idea is to get you hooked and decide you can’t live without it.

Susan

13

Ok, still playing with this CD BOOTABLE VERSION OF LINUX. Most everything works pretty good. Still doesn’t see my usb drive, it would seem. I may or may not fiddle with it long enough to make that work. Does a good job of most everything else. Good job with the intellimouse and soundcard. Pdf reader included. Mozilla is in here too. Plays my music files, movies, etc…
Does’nt know what to do with .ram files though. (old south park collection)