arstechnica.com— Congress is considering comprehensive spyware legislation, but the EFF is convinced that it will actually make the problem worse. Not everyone agrees.
Apr 27, 2007View in Crawl 4
Actually, google bots do that already. Every once in a while, I come across a link that when I click it, first brings up a page from google warning me that it contains malware. (DANG, beaten by ten minutes! I should refresh more often)
I wonder if congress is competent enough to pull anything off, they will probably make a ban that legalizes any program that reports back to the internet.
What classifies a law as enforceable? If, for the sake of argument, 51% of murder cases went unsolved, would that mean murder is unenforced? That's an honest question I've received for offering this viewpoint, and would appreciate a good answer if anyone has one.
How about this.1) It shall now be illegal to imbed a file within an email, download, or webpage that runs any program or process the user did not knowingly consent too in clear and honest terms. 2) All programs must have a fully functional uninstall and register themselves in add remove programs. Having to be redirected to a website or download a file to complete the uninstall will now violate the law. 3) Mousetrapping ( disabling a websites back feature) is now illegal.4) Destroying a computer users files through malicious activity will now be treated exactly as if you broke into their house and burned their personal file cabinet.5) Changing a persons homepage without consent is now illegal.6) Piggybacking programs within other programs without an explicit explanation and a check box option to disable said programs is now illegal.7) Using another computers processing power without the users knowledge is now illegal and will be be viewed by law in a similar content to tapping off your neighbors electricity. 8) Many users prey upon United States Citizens from off shore. Egregious offenders will be brought to the attentional of local authorities but in the case of repeated attacks and violations and against our citizens the United States will reserve the right to take offensive action against the perpetrators in whatever manner they see fit. You have been warned. I could go on but you get the idea. The penalties would have to be worked out but it would be a start. From the actions of the government I can only conclude that they don't care about the problem or they are just so fundamentally broken they can't fix anything at this point. Why can't Spam be banned? Who wants it? Who benefits? Who would miss it? 99.9999999999999999% would love to see it outlawed but Congress can't even make that happen.
s**t the government is tracking and tracing everything you are doing now via, cell phone, television, internet, spy cams, etc. etc. etc.....of course they will give the illusion of stopping this.
lolhaxApr 28, 2007
And what happens when a site is flagged by mistake? Who decides what sites go in the list?
fkr3Apr 28, 2007
They do, at least Google does. If it's aware of a problem you're taken to a special page and you have to cut & paste the url to proceed. The result in the G. page has a link to here under the title, with the main link redirected to the warning page shown here:<a class="user" href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=45449&topic=360&hl=en&sa=X&oi=malwarewarninglink&resnum=2&ct=help">http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=45449&topic=360&hl=en&sa=X&oi=malwarewarninglink&resnum=2&ct=help</a>
slearwigApr 28, 2007
Whoops, thanks fkr3. That's a feature I haven't encountered yet.
elnerdoApr 28, 2007
Actually, google bots do that already. Every once in a while, I come across a link that when I click it, first brings up a page from google warning me that it contains malware. (DANG, beaten by ten minutes! I should refresh more often)
murdatsApr 28, 2007
apparently neither is reply
addicted68098Apr 28, 2007
I wonder if congress is competent enough to pull anything off, they will probably make a ban that legalizes any program that reports back to the internet.
ubernickApr 28, 2007
What classifies a law as enforceable? If, for the sake of argument, 51% of murder cases went unsolved, would that mean murder is unenforced? That's an honest question I've received for offering this viewpoint, and would appreciate a good answer if anyone has one.
Closed AccountApr 28, 2007
How about this.1) It shall now be illegal to imbed a file within an email, download, or webpage that runs any program or process the user did not knowingly consent too in clear and honest terms. 2) All programs must have a fully functional uninstall and register themselves in add remove programs. Having to be redirected to a website or download a file to complete the uninstall will now violate the law. 3) Mousetrapping ( disabling a websites back feature) is now illegal.4) Destroying a computer users files through malicious activity will now be treated exactly as if you broke into their house and burned their personal file cabinet.5) Changing a persons homepage without consent is now illegal.6) Piggybacking programs within other programs without an explicit explanation and a check box option to disable said programs is now illegal.7) Using another computers processing power without the users knowledge is now illegal and will be be viewed by law in a similar content to tapping off your neighbors electricity. 8) Many users prey upon United States Citizens from off shore. Egregious offenders will be brought to the attentional of local authorities but in the case of repeated attacks and violations and against our citizens the United States will reserve the right to take offensive action against the perpetrators in whatever manner they see fit. You have been warned. I could go on but you get the idea. The penalties would have to be worked out but it would be a start. From the actions of the government I can only conclude that they don't care about the problem or they are just so fundamentally broken they can't fix anything at this point. Why can't Spam be banned? Who wants it? Who benefits? Who would miss it? 99.9999999999999999% would love to see it outlawed but Congress can't even make that happen.
mojibyrdApr 28, 2007
s**t the government is tracking and tracing everything you are doing now via, cell phone, television, internet, spy cams, etc. etc. etc.....of course they will give the illusion of stopping this.
charlene89Nov 30, 2007
Fighting spyware as impossible as fighting email spam. <a class="user" href="http://spysweeper-download.blogspot.com">http://spysweeper-download.blogspot.com</a> illustrates a better way of guarding sensitive data - use antispyware and never rely on legislation )) another cool application is Xoftspy from <a class="user" href="http://xoftspyantispyware.blogspot.com">http://xoftspyantispyware.blogspot.com</a> which features very user-friendly GUI.