[IP] Can You Trust Your Spyware Protection?
Begin forwarded message:
From: TruChaos@xxxxxxx
Date: May 31, 2005 10:36:21 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Can You Trust Your Spyware Protection?
Can You Trust Your Spyware Protection?
Why Your spyware scanner may not catch some adware programs.
Andrew Brandt
From the July 2005 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The next time you run a scan with your anti-spyware tool, it might
miss some programs. Several anti-spyware firms, including Aluria,
Lavasoft, and PestPatrol, have quietly stopped detecting adware from
companies like Claria and WhenU--a process called delisting. Those
adware companies have been petitioning anti-spyware firms to delist
their software; other companies have resorted to sending cease-and-
desist letters that threaten legal action.
In most cases it's difficult for customers to determine whether their
anti-spyware tool has delisted anything and, if so, which adware it
skips.
"When a spyware program gets delisted, users won't be aware of its
presence," says Harvard law student and spyware researcher Ben
Edelman. The practice, he says, "offers spyware makers a new lease on
life, letting them keep users who otherwise would have removed their
software."
Degrees of Spyware
Of course, some spyware apps are worse than others. One spyware
program may make severe changes to your computer's settings, while
another merely displays ads.
Claria and WhenU are making the case that their adware programs don't
resort to illegal tactics, such as exploiting security holes, to
install themselves. And though this software can be annoying, adware
developers argue that merely being listed in an anti-spyware
scanner's database tarnishes a company's reputation by linking its
relatively benign adware application with far more harmful and
intrusive spyware programs.
According to Avi Naider of WhenU, though some other adware companies
will track your Web meanderings and sell that data, WhenU's privacy
policy doesn't permit it to track the search queries that users type
or the Web pages that they browse.
Each anti-spyware firm uses its own set of criteria to decide whether
to remove or detect a file or Registry key related to spyware.
Usually even a few bad behaviors suffice to red-tag a file as spyware
or adware.
Peter Mackow of PCTools, maker of the Spyware Doctor anti-spyware
program, says that his company won't publish the entire list of its
criteria for fear that spyware companies will use the information to
design a spyware application that skirts every rule. That is a
position shared by many others who fight spyware.
"The spyware guys want a really rigid set of rules defining spyware
so they can then make an end run around [all of them]," says Eric L.
Howes, who tracks the spyware business for Spywarewarrior.com and
consults for anti-spyware software companies.
Experts recommend that you employ two--or even three--anti-spyware
tools. The more you use, the likelier they are to counter the
individual biases of each anti-spyware company.
To Delist or Not
It's unfair to permanently blacklist a company based on its past
behavior, so some delisting is inevitable. But delisting an adware
application is a dangerous proposition for anti-spyware developers.
In the past, some spyware and adware makers have changed their
software enough to get delisted only to resume the activity that got
them flagged in the first place.
As a result, the anti-spyware industry has developed a thick skin.
Delisting is rare because, Edelman says, anti-spyware firms "stand up
to strongly worded demand letters."
Adware companies also decry the word spyware itself as inherently
negative, so some anti-spyware firms have tried to create terms that
mean essentially the same thing, using more-neutral language:
grayware, potentially unwanted programs, or potentially unwanted
software. But Webroot's CEO David Moll argues that matters could get
more confusing if the anti-spyware companies try to refer to spyware
by other names, just when many people are beginning to understand
what spyware can do.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120914,tk,dn053105X,00.asp
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