Spyware defined
p2p news / p2pnet: Broadly speaking, spyware is software as affecting one or more of these areas:
Privacy – Compromising the user`s information or data, such as:
Exposure to fraud or identity theft
Loss of personal information
Unauthorized trackingSecurity – Impacting the system integrity of the computer, such as:
Attacking the computer, or using it as part of an attack
Exposing the computer to risk by lowering security settings
Using computer resources in an unauthorized manner
Hiding programs from the userUser Experience – Impacting the user`s functionality of the computer, such as:
Delivering unexpected advertisements
Changing settings
Creating system instability or slowing performance
That`s the view of the Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC) which has just unveiled its final definition of spyware, developed by coalition members including major anti-spyware companies, software developers and public interest groups.
These risk categories are not mutually exclusive, and are not limited to the examples above, it says. Rather, they, represent the general areas Anti-Spyware vendors examine, and help describe the impact to users in common terms.
The definitions were further shaped by almost 400 comments submitted by organizations and individuals and the final document, available now on the ASC web site, will serve as the foundation for future coalition anti-spyware efforts, says the organization.
Its first effort is a “risk modeling” document that outlines the objective criteria anti-spyware vendors use to determine whether to identify a piece of software as “spyware.”
The ASC says the paper, which goes into considerable technical detail about the specific behaviors that make certain technologies risky, will help users better understand how products that protect their computers work, as well as offering anti-spyware companies guidelines for their own proprietary rating processes, “but still keeping a robust marketplace for anti-spyware technologies”.
The risk-modeling document also sets the stage for the eventual development of industry-wide “best practices” and will be open for public comment until November 27, 2005, on the ASC Web site.
“We’ve already found these documents essential to our discussions with consumers, government and law enforcement,” says David Fewer, staff counsel with CIPPIC, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.
These definitions provide us with the tools we need to communicate both the scope of spyware`s challenge, and the sweep of the legislative and law enforcement response necessary to respond to that challenge.
The ASC also today announced its first public meeting, slated for February 9, 2006, at the Hyatt Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Confirmed keynoters include FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras and Wall Street Journal Columnist Walt Mossberg.
The ASC will hold a second public meeting in Ottawa on May 16. Details about both events are available on the ASC Web site.
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October 28th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Spyware used to be a problem for me. No longer. About the worse I see is cookies now a days. I gave Windows the boot for this and for its openess to other malware and run Linux these days.
I don’t have to have paid for malware removers, I don’t have to worry about free utilities that report back to the makers website. I don’t have to spend the time to go looking all over for some invasive program.
October 30th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
You did just about everything but spell it out in black and white; but Iâm still going to ask the obvious. Is it your belief that Microsoft purposefully created software that allowed for the ease with which spyware is deployed or that it did so quite by accident (nonetheless bearing the blame for the proliferation this plague)?
When Windows 95 first hit the market, I was worried and more than a little uneasy about the prospects of a âfreebieâ software program included with the OS called âCarbon Copyâ If one were to read the intricate details of the software, it would become immediately apparent that all sorts of plaques could issue from that Pandoraâs Box.
In time, of course, M$ swept most of it under the rug or provided utopian possibilities where none actually existed. Then, one day, while idly surfing, I stumbled across an item which M$ was marketing with gusto â (too many years have passed to presume to supply accurate quotes, but the gist of the item was that M$ was offering courses to all parties who might have an interest in the possibilities of Internet mass-marketing (massive e-mail) complete with where to obtain âgoodâ or âcurrentâ lists of email accounts. And I discovered this item right about the time that Mr. Gates, as Grand Marshall of the Comdex that year (you see why itâs so hard to pinpoint?), assured the public that unwanted spam was high on the list of issues that M$ intended to devote its resources to that year.
However, one must never underestimate the extremely intelligent Mr. Gates. That most insidious of all computer monsters still remains with us, and shows no signs of vulnerability, yet: the omnipresent âcookieâ. Until that infestation is cleansed from our PCs, no amount of utilitarian software will protect us from ever-new blights.