Slashdot Log In
Every 5th Call At Dell Is Spyware-Related
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Oct 17, 2004 05:41 PM
from the yes-ma'am-that's-a-feature dept.
from the yes-ma'am-that's-a-feature dept.
prostoalex writes "Financial Express quotes a Dell executive saying that spyware is installed on roughly 90% computers out there. Right now 20% of all Dell phone support calls are spyware-related. University of Washington research this March published a moderate estimate of 5.1% PCs running spyware."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Okay (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it could be 5% or 90%. I look after machines in the towns round here for home users and businesses. Over the last few months about 90% of the jobs I have done for home users have been removing spyware or viruses, but only 5% or 10% of jobs for businesses have been spyware related.
Parent
Re:Okay (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Okay (Score:4, Funny)
you almost pray someone will call you that has deleted random registry keys or doesn't know how to use a mouse.
:
Parent
Well 10%.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well 10%.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Well 10%.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Well 10%.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Well 10%.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
IMO, more than 20% if well maintained systems... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Spyware is the chronic disorder of Windows today (Score:5, Insightful)
A worm outbreak today is an acute disorder -- the bulk of the damage is done in one day, even a handful of hours or minutes. Even though recovering a business or department from it can take longer, the outbreak itself burns through the vulnerable population pretty quickly, and starves itself. Spyware, because it's rooted in long-standing bad security practices both by Microsoft and by Windows users, is a chronic disorder -- it doesn't just shut you down for a day or so; it degrades your online life over a long, nasty time.
To extend the analogy perhaps too far: A flash worm is like Ebola: it kills its victims quickly and messily and leaves a disgusting corpse. Everyone knows when it's in town because of the gory sacks of flesh lying around the streets. Spyware is like cirrhosis of the liver. It comes from doing something bad over a long period of time. It doesn't spread to others materially, though long-term excessive drinking (which causes it) can "spread" memetically in a population, as do bad Windows security practices. And, eventually, it causes the affected organ to be overwhelmed and just shut down.
The spyware situation today is one created by a nexus of influences:
The first two are well-known and I will not address them further. The latter are not.
What I call contract date-rape is the evil represented by so-called "end-user license agreements" and other documents which purport to represent agreements between software publishers and computer owners. The unethical business practice of software publishers is as follows: The computer owner buys a piece of software and installs it, only to find that it is designed so that it cannot be run without "accepting" an "agreement" which waives the owner's rights -- such as resale rights, rights to a refund for defective merchandise, or even free-speech rights. Then, when the software does something harmful and the owner seeks recourse, he is told that he "consented" to whatever harm was done, simply by the act of using what he purchased.
It is contract date-rape which puts the lie to that old FUD about open-source software: "But whom do you sue when it breaks and doesn't get fixed?" The owner of a computer using proprietary software under a Microsoft-style EULA does not have any enforceable rights against the publisher. Windows does break in many ways that Microsoft doesn't fix, but nobody is suing Microsoft for it. Why? Whether the EULA is in fact legally binding or not, both Microsoft and computer owners regard it as leaving Microsoft with no obligations.
(Of course, software was not always sold on "as-is" terms that were intended in law for used and defective products. Nor was it sold on terms that used copyright law as a cudgel with which to deprive users of rights such as fair comment and resale. Contract date-rape is not an endemic problem of proprietary software; it is one that proprietary software publishers have chosen for themselves.)
And it is the methodical use of contract date-rape which leads to the situation we have with spyware today. Spyware gets into a computer owner's property unannounced, alongside some piece of (presumably) desired software. It is a Trojan horse in the original sense -- sooner or later, it bursts open and out pour the soldiers of the enemy, who go about merrily burning w
Parent
In defense of M$FT - have to disagree on one item (Score:5, Insightful)
The spyware situation today is one created by a nexus of influences:
I can't argue with 3) or 4). But as for 1) [and it touches a little on 2)], we've been running Windows NT & Windows 2000 for more than five years now, and we've NEVER had a SINGLE piece of spyware installed on any of our systems. [Never had a virus or a worm either, although I hope I didn't just jinx myself by saying that.]
You know why? BECAUSE NONE OF OUR END-USERS LOG ON AS ADMINISTRATORS!!! That's it - it's that simple. They don't have Administrative rights, and they can't install spyware [or viruses, or worms]. [Of course, yours truly installs the latest security patches as soon as they appear, and has always had all of his users behind a fire wall, but that's not the important point here.]
If you surf the web as an Administrator [Root] on OSX, or if you surf the web as an Administrator [Root] on Linux, you're every bit as prone to this stuff as any Microsoft user surfing the web as an Administrator [or you would be, if those operating systems had large enough market share for the spyware people to be bothered with writing spyware for them].
Parent
I tried (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried to set my friends up that way. It isn't hard, XP comes with that ability, even in the home version. Setting up is easy enough. Making it work is another matter though. Nearly half of the programs my friends want to run do not work correctly without administrator rights. This includes software for XP from Microsoft!
In the end I gave up, ideally they wouldn't use the administrator account except when needed, but practically their computer didn't work without it. Switching users takes time and is a pain. Not hard, and it doesn't take long, but annoying enough that I can't call it a solution.
Remember this is a home environment, not a work environment. They don't have someone checking out software from various competitors to see if it meets requirements. If Best Buy sells it they buy it, and expect it to work. (note that you can almost never return software after finding out that it doesn't work without administrator rights)
Parent
Hello (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hello (Score:5, Funny)
-Apu
Parent
Re:Hello (Score:4, Insightful)
And besides, there is some truth to it. The problem is we in India, though are tought english from the first grade, rarely use it in everyday converstaion , so our conversation skills are limited.
We can't create simple short meaningful sentences. We use words like "basically", "actually", "technically" etc. ad nauseam and all at wrong places.
If we really want to keep these "outsourced" jobs we need to buckle up and improve our skills , rather than accuse Americans of being racist.
From my prespective we should rather do RnD stuff, for our own benefits rather than pacify some pissed of customer 7 seas across, who can barely figure out what we are speaking.
Parent
Dell saves $$$ pre-installing firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Due to awareness? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this because users are now more aware of the existance of spyware, rather than the actual 19% increase?
For instance, in 2003, Joe-granpa probably didn't know/care why his modem's blinking non-stop, but he does now.
To see if you have spyware... (Score:5, Informative)
Spybot Search&Destroy http://spybot.safer-networking.de/ [safer-networking.de]
and Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ [lavasoftusa.com]
BTW, be sure to update the definitions or you're going to miss a lot of spyware.
Re:To see if you have spyware... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html [spywareinfo.com]
I support quite a few home systems. Currently, the majority of my time is spent cleaning spyware and virus infestations. After installing Ad-Aware, HijackThis and Spybot, my clients stop having problems. As well, a working virus scanner is important. I've encountered several systems where the virus scanner has been deactivated. Therefore, I've been putting the EICAR test virus on all my systems.
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm [eicar.org]
Spyware used to be most bots from hackers, now it seems it's all marketing crap from big business. Isn't greed grand?
Parent
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
They really went the distance to get the results they wanted...
Techs should feel fortunate (Score:5, Interesting)
UW report - read it carefully (Score:5, Informative)
It didn't answer how many of the computers were infected with any spyware program, just those four.
The obvious question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The obvious question: (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Will they help remove it? (Score:5, Interesting)
By the way, I love the "Your browser has blocked a popup" image over the article text. Really helps in the journalistic integrity department.
As a local (retail) PC Tech... (Score:5, Informative)
At least 8 of the 10 computers that I fix follow this routine:
Update and run AV program, if possible.
Install Adaware, update, run.
Install Spybot S&D, update, run.
Run CWShredder.
Fire up a HijackThis! log and manually remove the leftovers.
I'm getting pretty damn good at filtering out the hijackthis logs, too.
Seriously, if you familiarize yourself with spyware removal, you could make a killing on the home PC market. Manufacturers won't help you with spyware. It's getting to the point where the retail chains and PC shops won't deal with it either; they'll simply offer you a format/reinstall.
Prevention (Score:5, Insightful)
But avoiding spyware on the whole is very simple, and comes down to a few simple steps, based on prevention is better than cure, i.e. it's better not to get something bad at all, than to get something bad and then have to get rid of it.
Make sure their computers are behind some kind of hardware or software firewall which blocks all incoming TCP connection requests. Yes, there is more to it, but this one step is a huge improvement on not having a firewall.
Install another browser such as Mozilla Firefox, and show them how to use it. Only use Internet Explorer for specific sites that you trust, if it has to be used at all. Remember that many users need Flash and Java, so consider installing these as well to stop them going back to IE as soon as they hit a site requiring one or the other.
Spend a few minutes educating your users about malicious software. Explain that a computer simply follows instructions with little concept of good or bad, and that it only takes a double click on one file containing such instructions (eg a .exe file) to contaminate the system.
Yes, there's more: software updates, strong passwords, encryption, using more secure software and all the rest of it. Unfortunately most of our users aren't interested in becoming computer security experts. If you can get those three above points hammered in, and let them know that that there is more to securing their computer, you're making a big step in the right direction.
This is partly Dell's fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell do they expect to happen, when they won't let the techs solve the problem?
At Time Warner we have HALF related to spyware (Score:5, Informative)
In fact it's so bad. I have the Microsoft KB article 817571 bookmarked and always open on my desktop for when I take calls.
Dell's OEM Windows OS' come with spywares... (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true... (Score:4, Interesting)
I see it all the time (Score:5, Insightful)
1) They accidently click on something they didn't mean to, because of a popup. It goes downhill from there, since many spyware programs act like virii and have some friends join the fray.
2) Users that hit porn sites. These are the black hole of spyware, and while I've told them "stop looking at the porn and you wont get this crap", and they say they don't, yet I see their Internet Explorer history and its just filled with porn urls.
While my parents are largely #1, I've switched them to firefox and its gone down dramatically. I still catch them using IE for things like OWA and a few other IE-sites (and they will re-use the browser window to do other things).
I simply got tired of deal with them calling me about "CoolWebSearch" and tons of other junk that pisses me off.
I use Internet Explorer *and* firefox to browse the web, and I never get *any* spyware - I just know what to look out for. I'd say at least 80% of the people out there don't.
It also helps if you surf the web as a non-priveldged account - those are, for the most part, invulnerable to spyware. Just as none of you would use any web browser on linux as root -
agressiv
HP Pavilions (Score:4, Interesting)
It's pretty bad if your grandmother downloads and installs some screensaver with this shit on it, but HP should not be doing this to its customers. Having to deal with a recovery CD is bad enough, without having to clean out the extra "value added" shit (aka sweetheart deals that make them mo money). HP is stabbing their customers in the back.
(Unrelated to this, kinda, but when I was ordering this recovery CD from the HP drone on the phone, I asked him the price.
He said "between $20 and $40."
So I said, "Can you be more specific?"
He said, "I'll need the model number first."
So I gave it to him and said "So what's the price?"
"Between $20 and $40, depending on the model number."
"I just gave you the model number! What's the price?"
"You need to order it first."
"Tell me the price first."
"You need to order it before I can tell you the price."
"You mean you can't, or won't, tell me the price?"
"Just order it, and if you don't like the price, I'll cancel the order."
"Fine. Whatever."
I ended up ordering it anyway, but I have never seen such a stupid system where you can't know the price until you order.)
installed spyware (Score:5, Interesting)
We've seen Dell+Spyware before (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, nice to see it coming around to byte you, eh, Dell?
There's peope harvesting botted systems (Score:5, Interesting)
There's someone who does an organized scan of my ISP's IP space every morning at 8:42 and 9:42 EDT. When I have two DHCP IPs, both get hit with an average of eight bots each trying ports 5554, 1023, 9898 and 445. The IPs it comes from are usually Korean or Japanese. When I listen at the ports, they try various exploits on bots which do listen on those ports to download their own bot software.
I suspect that "8:42 Zombie Charlie" scans a lot more than my ISP's space. So it looks like someone is running a very organized and *punctual* effort to harvest a whole lot of botted machines for unknown purposes. Joy. (Actually, it's kind of fun. I wrote a sound effects program from my firewall, and I drink my coffee listening to the chorus of sounds as the ports are checked. Too bad I can't arrange to be checked a little earlier in the morning.)
Re:There's peope harvesting botted systems (Score:4, Informative)
I ran into an issue once where this customer had a repeated history of service abuse. The issue of course was a virus. It was logged over and over in her customer log that she formatted and reinstalled the PC with her Dell restoration disks (dell walked her through the process). So when it came to my attention with the customer called in for the 4th bloody time, I asked her if she was using a wireless router. She said "Ya, I have a blue Linksys wireless"
Well folks, she learned a valuble lesson to never leave a wireless router unprotected at an appartment near the UT campus. Obviously someone else decided to leach off her connection and blow infected viri down her modem, hence SHE got blame for it.
Parent
Dell wouldn't have it any other way...here's why: (Score:5, Insightful)
You guessed it: Spyware.
Why would Dell want to fix the problems? Their solution often times is to tell the hapless user that their machine is toast, and that they should buy a new one.
-ted
Possible spyware cure? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I envision is a screen saver that we load on all the machines we can get our hands on. This screen saver then contacts these spyware sites and uploads random info. The aggressiveness could be controlled by the user, allowing it not to flood any Internet connection. The screen saver could have spyware lists, just like anti-virus software that could be updated. Imagine having millions of pcs uploading junk to coolwebsearch. How long would you say these guys would stay in business? Would those that are buying this info continue to do so even if it full of garbage?
Obviously this would be OSS, but we could license it in such a way as to allow folks like Dell to preload this and set it as default.
So folks, what do you think? Is this the way to kill these guys or is the recent criminalization enough to stem the tide?
Re:In that case... (Score:5, Funny)
Funny thing, I read that article and a popup for spyware comes up, defying even Firefox's popup blocker. Ironically, the popup said that the computer has spyware installed.
Eh.
Parent
Re:In that case... (Score:5, Funny)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
I wouldn't trust the average user to make toast without burning down the house.
Parent
Re:In that case... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:In that case... (Score:5, Funny)
You pull up in your drive way and everything seems normal. But then you walk in the house and see a hot girl sitting on your couch. She walks over and gives you a passionate kiss and tells you dinner is ready. You know something is seriously wrong the universe.
In this parallel world, *your* favorite Linux distribution is King. As is your favorite Window Manager, toolkit, and so on. 90% of the world runs it.
Now my question is - what would prevent spyware authors from writing and sucessfully deploying spyware on your Operating System?
Lets make the assumption that people in this parallel universe are just as careless as they are in the real universe.
Parent
Re:In that case... (Score:5, Insightful)
Once installed an extension can do anything the user can do. Normally that might be to stick a button onto the browser, but there's nothing to stop the extension searching your drive and uploading data, acting as spyware or installing a root kit etc.
Just like ActiveX, XPI files are meant to be signed so you can establish trust. But no one digitally signs their Firefox extensions! Therefore users are 'trained' to install untrusted XPI extensions. Untrusted means you have no idea who wrote it, or if it's been tampered with.
Firefox 1.0pr1 has introduced a small band-aid. Now have to indicate you 'trust' a site before you can install an XPI from it. It's better than nothing but it still won't authenticate or repudiate the XPI as being from that site - someone could have replaced the genuine XPI with a malicious one, or intercepted the entire site entirely.
The XPI model either needs to enforce certs and give contributors a way to get them conveniently and cheaply. Or it should move over to PGP signatures and a web of trust model. In some ways the latter is more beneficial since people don't have to fork out ludicrous sums to Verisign to authenticate that they wrote the extension.
In any case, I'm just indicating that a naive user could install something on Linux that they would later regret.
Parent
It's not cheaper (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and if your customers buy new hardware and it doesn't work, you can't pawn them off on the manufacturer (no Linux support, you see). Yeah, hardware Dell didn't sell you isn't supported. Try telling that to the average jerk who just bought a $30 dollar digital Camera. He's not gonna care if you support it or not, and he's just gonna get pissed and buy a Windows PC next time.
You're underestimating the value that $50 bucks buys an OEM.
Parent
Re:85% of all support calls I get are from spyware (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been using DOS then Windows since 1984 and have never had spyware or a virus either. In fact I don't even run checkers constantly, just every few weeks to double check. (And for the record I have been doing Linux since late 1991 and not had anything there either).
If you are prepared to put the time and effort into it, it is all pretty easy. You don't blindly run or view stuff from other sources, you don't steal software (if you don't have the originals then you have no idea what you are actually getting), you pay attention to the dialog boxes that various programs display etc. Heck I even read the contents of those dialog boxes with legal agreements in them before clicking Ok or Cancel. Most people just don't do that, and as a result their computers end up with more "helpful" software than they otherwise anticipated.
To say that Linux by design is invulnerable is nonsense. It doesn't take too much to infect an individual user (remember they aren't reading those dialog boxes either). And notice how on many Linuxen, when you try to run an admin tool on your ordinary user desktop, prompt for your (sudo) or the root password and which then leaves a key icon in your panel. That is one thing that can be abused to go from ordinary user to root. In many cases a piece of malware could probably just prompt and the average user would type in the necessary password.
Quite frankly I don't know the answer. Signing stuff doesn't work. User education is futile - why should someone have to know about the internals of their computer, operating system, access and authorisation models? It probably comes down the programmers and user interface. Every time the software has to ask a question, it is being stupid. We need to continually work on the software meeting the user's goals without needing to be babysat, and especially without them having to make these decisions all the time.
Parent
Re:I make a good living cleaning spyware... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Perhaps Dell should pre-install less spyware. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Perhaps Dell should pre-install less spyware. (Score:4, Informative)
The very fact that you have been modded informative serves to demonstrate that Dell + RedHat is not an obvious option and most people remain blissfully unaware that it exists.
Dell only offer Linux as an option to appease the Linux crowd. They certainly don't want to be hit by a backlash from the rabid Linux fanboys. But at the same time they are keeping on BillG's good side by sticking "Dell recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP" graphics all over their webstore and ensuring that the Linux option is kept pretty much hidden from the general publics view.
Try going to the Dell website and browsing to a PC with Linux. Don't do a site search for Linux, as that defeats the purpose. Joe Average won't be doing that after all. I just tried looking around for a few minutes. You would think that if you were to check out the "Learn more about operating systems" links on most of their store pages you might see a mention of the Linux option?. No, there is no mention of Linux in there, just descriptions of XP Home vs XP Professional. Yay! It's as if Linux doesn't even exist.
Dell might technically sell you Linux if you ask for it, but they sure go out of their way to make sure you don't ask about it.
Parent