No Honor Among Malware Purveyors 416
metalion writes "True to the saying 'no honor among thieves,' adware company, Avenue Media, is finding that competing adware company, DirectRevenue, is detecting and deleting their software. Now Avenue Media is crying foul and have filed a lawsuit against DirectRevenue stating that DirectRevenue 'knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers.' DirectRevenue acknowledges that it may uninstall competing applications in its user license agreement. A researcher at Harvard University, Ben Edelman, reasons that 'Once the computer is infected with 10 different unwanted programs, the person is likely to take some action to address the situation.' Just how far will adware companies go to continue to attempt to bombard us with their ads?"
Too funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they are complaining about themselves.
When does it stop?
-nB
Re:Too funny (Score:3, Funny)
-Peter
Re:Too funny (Score:3, Funny)
Between that and expending resources suing each other, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.
Re:Too funny (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too funny (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the effect of this was demoed nearly a decade ago, by none other than Microsoft, who has never been punished for their actions.
When the first version of Windows Media Player came out, all the reviewers reported that after they'd tested it, they found all their other audio software was dead and had to be re-installed. And if they left any piece of WMP in their machine, any time it ran, all the non-MS audio software would again die and you'd have to reinstall it.
My wife found out about this the hard way. She had some nice audio software. Then she installed some financial software (not from Microsoft). It silently installed WMP as a "bonus". All her quality audio software was broken. She reinstalled, but eventually gave up, because neither of us could figure out how to uninstall WMP. And it eventually developed an even more annoying behavior: When you started upsome audio using a high-quality player, WMP would start up in parallel. The two renditions would both come out of the speakers, out of sync by a couple seconds.
She's now a very happy Mac user. She gave me her Windows box, and it's mostly turned off, except when I need to test something (mostly web pages) against Windows software.
Anyway, in such cases "not to play" means you don't even try to sell your software to Windows users. It doesn't matter whether you were a good guy and cooperated with the others. WMP will kill you anyway.
I know a number of audio-software developers who have become rather depressed by this. They can get put on MS's "good guys" list, of course, by selling the control of their software to MS. But they seem to have this silly idea that they should be able to build and sell their own software.
There's really no reason that the spy/malware folks should ever stop shooting down other software. The only real solution is to keep their software out entirely. Or maybe jail them. I wouldn't think you'd need any new laws. Vandalism is already illegal everywhere. But such laws aren't enforced for software.
I wonder if a vandalism charge could be successful against WMP?
When it will stop. (Score:2, Insightful)
However, when the stupid malware companies realize that what they really need to do is be more like the true biologial parasite, then it may slow down. A RL parasite is benign to the host. If they wrote their code so that you never knew it was there, you would never know to complain now would you?
Re:When it will stop. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When it will stop. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:When it will stop. (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. A parasite, by definiton, is an organism that harms its host. According to something I read a long time ago, there are three types of cohabitating organisms. A parasite harms its host, a symbiont benefits its host, and a commensal neither harms nor helps its host. It's the last one you were thinking of.
Re:When it will stop. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:When it will stop. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too funny (Score:3, Interesting)
This is great!! (Score:3, Funny)
Not so great... (Score:5, Funny)
This *could* be great... (Score:2)
Now *that* would be great.
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
What spyware writers need to do now is add the following features to their code:
- Random mutations
- Breeding and crossover with other spyware programs so that chunks of similar malicious code are exchanged
- A fitness evaluation function
The fitness evaluation should take into account:Genertic Algorithim in Action (Score:3, Interesting)
However, there is no point in designing a fitness evaluation. In real natural processes, the fitness evaluation is competition for resources. The only reason why it has to be introduced into modeled simulations is that there is no real competition in a model unless you include it. The real fitness evaluator of a virus is how
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it only needs to deliver advertising/spamming/phishing revenue. If it hitches a ride on a worm, that would make it even more fit.
Damage to the network is a "neutral" trait until it starts to interfere with spyware downloads.
Spyware filing a lawsuit? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Spyware filing a lawsuit? (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember the 6 o'clock news reporting on a guy who tried to steal from a Chinese restaurant by crawling through the kitchen's exhaust at the top of the building. Unfortunately for him, he landed on a stove that was left on at the end of the day. And of course, the very next week he was suing for the injuries he had sustained as a result of his illegal activities. Don'
Firmware ADS. (Score:5, Interesting)
When ads are burned into BIOSes.
Re:Firmware ADS. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Firmware ADS. (Score:3, Insightful)
oh wait....
Now here's an idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now here's an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because it is listed in Add/Remove Software doesn't mean it is removed entirely.
Re:Now here's an idea (Score:2)
Of course, a law doesn't automatically make people comply, but it does provide for additional punishment for those who don't if you can catch them. This is the reason for a lot of the laws we have on the books...
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Now here's an idea (Score:2, Insightful)
But on a clean install, there IS no spyware to uninstall. So how can you install the first program without breaking...wait, that's brilliant!
Re:Now here's an idea (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, I have a better idea... don't do that first bit and go straight to shooting the bastards!
How far will they go? (Score:5, Funny)
Just how far will adware companies go to continue to attempt to bombard us with their ads?
A) As far as they think they need to go
B) As far as they are allowed to go and remain on the right side of the law
C) As far as they need to go despite the law
D) All of the above
E) Profit?
F) CowboyNeal
Re:How far will they go? (Score:2)
A) As far as they think they need to go
B) As far as they are allowed to go and remain on the right side of the law
C) As far as they need to go despite the law
D) All of the above
E) Profit?
F) CowboyNeal
Sad, but true. I think the answer is A) and E). They will go as far as they think they need to go in order to make more money. The better question might be, how far will they be allowed to go, either by com
a pit (Score:5, Funny)
More fun than core wars
Re:a pit (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. Much of the fun of core wars is documenting the battle and figuring out why particular competitors have won. Core wars is generally played out on a machine set up for just that purpose, and the competitors are known beforehand.
With malware, the battle is generally hidden, and you can't learn much from it. You just know that something's happened, because innocent bystanders (i.e., the software you want to run) has been injured in the battle. And you didn't volunteer
Re:a pit (Score:2)
fight amongst yourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
We could have a little battlebots competition! The Amazing Bonzi takes on reigning champion THE GATOR.
Hopefully they sue themselves out of business (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, ad/malware is one of the rare reasons I would encourage less strict weapon laws...
If they succed . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
"You further understand and agree, by installing the software, that the software may, without any further prior notice to you, remove, disable or render inoperative other adware programs resident on your computer."
So if a user agrees to this, what is the difference in terms of "user authorization" is this and him running ad-aware?
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2)
If they gave me some free penis enlargement pills I would!
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If they succed . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
This lawsuit is about some adware going outside the boundaries of their advertised function, and removing other adware and only telling the users by the fine print of the EULA.
Sometimes... (Score:4, Funny)
Sometimes you just wish that both sides can lose...
Familiar... (Score:4, Funny)
Malware attacking malware... (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, just about any attack on the concept of click-through EULAs is pretty good in my book. Scream "contract!" all you want, they're bad for me personally and bad for the industry. Consent and informed consent are two different things and it appears the industry has completely abandonded any pretext of the latter.
TW
Re:I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:2)
Re:I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine that whenever you went to the grocery store you were handed a 12 page contract at the checkouts - every time. Imagine that you had to sign a 27 page document every time you bought gas. Imagine having your babysitter and yourself exchange 107 page contracts every time you went out to dinner.
Contracts are great for their intended purpose - outlining rights and responsiblities in major transactions (your house, your car). They work best when you're talking about tangible things, or clearly defined services. Things are already getting murky when you start talking employment contracts and non-disclosure agreements. The standard we-can-kill-your-entire-family-and-you-can't-sue-
What is the point in having all these one-sided contracts for every possible action under the sun?
Perhaps there should be a law that all contracts are reviewed for fairness by a state attourney. There would be a fee of about $100 for every contract that is executed - this can be split by the parties however they feel is fair. Something like this wouldn't be a big deal for a house sale (gosh, most areas charge 1% plus a bundle of other fees). On the other hand, if MS had to send the state $100 for every windows installation, they'd think twice about those contracts. Ditto for the million other documents that serve no purpose.
Standard forms of business that have standard disclaimers should be covered by state law - such as a law stating what ski-lift operators are and are not responsible for. If they want to use a non-standard set of disclaimers, fine, but fork over $100 per customer. The state bears all the litigation costs when the contract is disputed - this lets them approve the contract before there is anything to argue over.
I wonder if a concept like this could actually work?
Re:I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact of the matter is that most people don't like those one-sided agreements. However,
Re:I hope the plaintif prevails (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course that also might incriminate the defendant. But you can't sue for damages over an illegal activity.
Let's hope they get a judge who's had a computer taken over by spyware / adware...
Mr. Kettle's comments upon Mr. Pot's reflectivitiy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mr. Kettle's comments upon Mr. Pot's reflectivi (Score:2, Interesting)
Most 1st world legal systems (not sure whether the U.S. qualifies any more) have a "fine print" legal exemption - you can't put something onerous into an agreement and then try and hide it via tactics like fine print, or clicking through 76 pages, etc. Such clauses can be invalidated in the court.
Basically, you can't put stuff in the fine print that a "reasonable" person wouldn't expect to be agreeing to in the context of the agreement being reached.
Hard to get excited... (Score:3, Insightful)
hypocrisy (Score:2)
stating that DirectRevenue 'knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers.'
That should be put in the dictionary under "hypocrisy".
Exceeded its authorized access? (Score:5, Insightful)
And is my mom and other not-so-savvy users granting said authority in the first place? This suit seems riddled with assumptions that it was legal in the first place to install such software.
And since when has malware displayed any EULA - or any UI, for that matter?
Installation through security holes (Score:2, Informative)
See e.g. Who Profits from Security Holes? [benedelman.org].
What's fair is fair (Score:2, Funny)
Spy Vs. Spy (Score:2, Funny)
Playing CoreWars the Internet... (Score:5, Insightful)
After removing competitors, DR transmits ... (Score:5, Informative)
After DirectRevenue removes competitors' programs from users' disks, it also transmits extensive information about users' computers [benedelman.org]. Among the information: MAC address, Windows Product ID, all running tasks, and registry entrise for certain additional competitors (Gator, 180solutions) and removal programs (Ad-Aware, PestPatrol) if installed.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Too many geek quotes to apply here (Score:2, Funny)
There can be only one!
Gah.. my brain.
This is great. (Score:3, Funny)
Finally... it's been predicted of course. (Score:2)
It seems the day of reckoning may be seeing it's first light of dawn. Here's to hoping they all devour each other in a darwinistic orgy of competition. Maybe, in the end, each company competing will be the best form of Spyware removal tools a user could ask for.
Let the programs compete until there's a winner, then shoot the winner. Problem solved.
Perhaps they should sue their customers (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the users should be punished for violating the copyright on the software they didn't want in the first place, and was installed without their knowledge.
I don't expect this kind of... (Score:5, Interesting)
Barring use of some Windows based Spyware prevention tools (most of which aren't free for corporate use), mirgating to some combination of Mac OS X and Linux would end virtually all of this and then I could charge them for stuff like implementing cool new tools for them to use instead of upkeep of a broken system. Of course, these are the same customers who won't try FireFox because it "just doesn't feel right"???
I'm truly torn between my ethics and the need to keep up my income in a crap economy.
Advertisers in general are going insane (Score:5, Insightful)
A lady in El Paso gets a telemarketing call. She says no, repeatedly. Telemarketer ignores her, repeatedly. She hangs up, forcefully.
She later gets a letter saying:
So, we have:
OK, I move that we commit all advertisers to institutions for the criminally insane, right now.
Any seconds?
Re:Advertisers in general are going insane (Score:4, Funny)
One time this one lady called and the conversation went like this:
Woman: Good afternoon. May I speak to Mrs eric76?
Me: No.
Woman: Why not?
Me: She's being punished and isn't allowed to speak to anyone for another week.
Woman (in a rather cautious voice): Oh! I see.
and then she hung up.
Another time I told a telemarketer that Mrs eric76 was busy screwing one of the neighbors.
My favorite was a woman from San Antonio that called for some kind of radio survey. I tried to see how long I could talk to her on the telephone and about anything but radio.
Every time she tried to ask me about radio stations in my area, I'd ask her a question about San Antonio.
Not only did I ask her about restraunts, I asked her about several friends of mine who lived in or near San Antonio. It turned out that she had never met any of them!
Re:Advertisers in general are going insane (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, it makes me angry, and it's good to express one's anger. And if enough people express it, maybe we can have our phones back at last. The anger comes from not just your call, no. It comes because your call has come as the second or third time that day that I have been pulled away from what I was doing, ran to a phone that I had been waiting for for some other reason, and it's someone pr
and how long before (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:and how long before (Score:3)
Not counting such propositions [technologyreview.com]
it'll be there before you'll be moderated as funny.
What?! (Score:2)
*brain asplodes from irony*
If I were on the jury... (Score:2)
They'll never stop (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember reading this short story once about an ad-infested world where there were ads on every available surface. On your toilet paper, on your pancakes, on every square inch of wall, *everywhere*. One image was the protagonist attempting to shave (with difficulty) by looking through a letter "O" on his mirror. He finally gets fed up and he meets a woman who offers him a secret place to go to get away from ads for a few hours at a time. The twist was that the tiny one-room ad-free apartment was actually a government-run re-education facility to brainwash "ad-hating dissidents" to start accepting ads again.
Anyone know this story or remember the name? Now that us TiVo people are considered TV thieves, I'm starting to feel the story to be prophectic.
Re:They'll never stop (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, we already see so many ads today, that I can't describe to you the last Ad I saw. Web ads? TV ads? Billboards? Radio? Magazines? Newspapers? It doesn't matter. The human brain works by recording general traits, only getting specific if something stands out, or you make a me
How long (Score:2)
Easy. Until people stop buying their products.
Spam wouldn't exist if it wasn't economically feasable to do so.
Honor among thieves (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Honor among thieves (Score:3, Informative)
I thought that there *was* honor among thieves...
The correct phrase is "There is honor even among thieves", apparently first recorded in 1630. Also, "Thieves are never rogues among themselves."
There's an authoritative discussion here [msu.edu]. (The ODEP mentioned is the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs).
More defensive stance for malware (Score:3, Interesting)
Why, what's wrong with ads? (Score:5, Interesting)
I told them that was lying, and that it was wrong. They looked at me blankly. I may as well have been speaking Latin. I then explained a bit about Internete culture, and the negative feedback of spamming newsgroups. That, they could comprehend, but they didn't think I knew what I was talking about. Their model worked - and it wasn't lying, it was just business.
The mindset of people who spam, sell banner ads, use covert marketing, and advertize on Channel One is (to overgeneralize): whatever it takes to make money.
It doesn't matter what is "right" or "wrong" - rightness and wrongness are a matter of degree, and that degree is measured by a cost-benefit equation. If the
(likely revenue) > X% + sum of (potential costs * likelihood of each)
that's good and "right", otherwise it's bad and "wrong". 'X' represents the amount of margin you could make off some other investment.
The thing that distinguishes telemarketers and spammers is that negative feedback from non-customers doesn't bother them.
I don't know about the rest of you.. (Score:5, Funny)
1) A video tape of rival gangs of spammers getting in knife fights over ISP bandwith 'turf'.
2) Microsoft's Yakuzza getting irritated with SCO's failures to bring down Linux, and doing drive-bys shootings to the board menbers.
3) George Bush Jr. getting in a sissy slap-fight with John Ashcroft over the pronunciation of the word 'Nucular'.
Actually, this brings to light a larger question.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think all the EULA's are out of control as to how much control and ownership these companies have over your PC and what right's we as owners of the PC should have reserved.
I keep hoping someday, someone, somewhere will really bring all these EULA's that we are all subjected to each and everytime we install something, under a microscope and start really questioning the legality of said EULA's.
Just my 2 cents...
Here's the court filing (Score:3, Interesting)
Avenue Media is claiming "tortious interference with contract" on the grounds that DirectMedia is interfering with their contractual relationships with their customers. This is in addition to their Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim. The rationale, presumably, is that if they can show some kind of illegal act under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, their "tortious interference" claim might go somewhere.
Some anti-spyware group might want to file a friend-of-the-court brief. The best possible ruling would be that both parties are violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and therefore DirectMedia cannot claim to come to court with clean hands.
Re:too funny (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm hoping Avenue Media, I make good money removing spyware from people's machines.
Re:too funny (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:too funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:too funny (Score:2)
Re:Ripoff (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on, this is Slashdot. You don't actually expect competence, do you?
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
We have, It's called Linux.
Mozilla is the key along with a system that is better suited to internet attachment.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been running this for 3 years and every time I run a virus scan, it always comes back negative. It's nice because I don't need to pay the Symantec-McAffee tax every year. People always ask me whay virus program I use and they are very puzzled when I s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as never knowing because Windows is proprietary...that's a load of bullshit too. Stick a sniffer in between your box and the net. An old PC with Linux and ethereal installed will do. Watch the traffic. There is no way that they can hide anything proprietary or open source. So when was the last time you read through the whole kernel to make sure it was doing what you expected it to do?
Re:Good ol' malware (Score:2)
Based on that they say "other adware", sounds to me like they admit that they themselves are adware. Which to me translates as spyware/viri.
Re:May I be the first (Score:4, Funny)
>> Serves the fuckers right
Geesh. I was about to mark you as redundant before I posted this but then realized that you're claiming to be the 32nd one to post it, not the 1st.
*goes off looking for another person claiming to be the 32nd poster of Servers the **** right so he can mark them*
Wait, I posted.
Drat. Darnit. (^&(^*&^*
Mark me up/down according to your sense of humour.