We Must Beat Spyware By Roger Thompson August 9, 2004 As a major threat to the effective functioning of the Internet, spyware must be confronted by both industry and the government. If worms and viruses weren't enough, there's a new threat: spyware. This menace is defined as any software intended to aid an unauthorized person or entity in causing a computer—without the knowledge of the computer's user or owner—to divulge private data. Almost every PC is loaded with spyware. It's on a PC when you buy it. It enters your PC when you download free software. It makes its way into your hard drive when you open spam e-mail. eWeek
My first thought was that your statement "Almost every PC is loaded with spyware" was pandering to our natural sense of paranoia . However, on reflection, I recall that 1) there's a Logitech auto-update application which comes with Logitech mouse software, and which has been associated with backweb, and 2) I discovered just 15 mins ago that the unrecognised IP address 64.4.20.61 with a remote TCP connection (observed using trusty TDS-3's 'Netstat' function; must get that PE trial version on my PC!) is listed by ZA Pro as an MS update IP address, but belongs to an MS Hotmail IP range. MS downloading updates is one thing, but when you find out stuff like that, & you don't really have an explanation, then I, at least, start to feel uneasy. I think that the issue does need to be tackled upfront by software manufacturers (hmm.. projectile porcine entities), especially as, although most people in a forum like this are probably very well-protected, there are figures which show that the majority of PC users overall, are not so clued-up on the risks of malware & spyware & are unprotected. Good Luck with your efforts.
Most PC users, in my exp, haven't heard of spyware (and sometimes not even of viruses). Just as a case in point, I've removed about ten malicious spyware loggers from my machine in the past year, and hundreds of tracking cookies etc. Part of the problem, I think, is the browser and OS design, which makes so many caches and logs of online activity that they are just asking for it to get hacked. Plus much spyware seems to have been designed by programmers who can't write decent programs, meaning they take up ridiculous amounts of processor time to do very little indeed.
