InformationWeek | Malware | Google, Sun, Others Out To Shame Spyware | January 25, 2006 — Are these people high on something? Or do they not understand spyware at all?
The group, which calls itself StopBadware.org, is headed by Harvard Law’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University’s Oxford Internet Institute, backed by Google, Sun Microsystems, and Lenovo, and assisted by Consumer Reports’ WebWatch.
“StopBadware.org is a ‘Neighborhood Watch’ campaign aimed at fighting badware,” the group said on its Web site, which debuted Wednesday. “Badware” is the term the group uses to, as it said, “be a big tent” rather than limit itself to historical adware and spyware.
And we all know how “Neighborhood Watch” has all but eliminated crime in the USA.
On par with, “Just say no”.
Darn, somebody beat me to that “just say no” excuse.
OK, I got another one.
“Remember, Santa is watching and he is taking notes”
Actually, this might not be a bad idea.
Hey, John! Who can forget the way you helped shame Sony out of using ‘badware’ to enforce their digital rights? I know you didn’t do it alone, but you were one of the first to speak up and say that the end did not justify the means.
And what about all that “Claim Your Prize” adware that appears to come from Red Lobster, H&R Block etc? Are they guilty of willful blindness or do they just not care about protecting their trademarks?
Jeff,
Sorry to let you in on something, but there was a massive civil lawsuit against Sony. THAT is what made Sony change its mind.
Sony ignored the public pressure until Microsoft and the anti-virus companies offered patches and fixes. With all the lawyers signing up people, Sony had to do something and couldn’t ignore the effect that all those tech companies would have before a judge.
Okay, we’ve heard the reasons it won’t work…
How about some ideas to make it work?
Or, how about an idea that will work?
Gary
The two things that stop people from doing anti-social things are embarrassment and punishment. In the impersonal world of electronic communication, you really can’t embarrass a faceless person. You can, however, punish them.
I don’t think a spammer or hacker in Italy, Belarus, or Siapan really gives a rat’s butt what we say about him. He is oblivious about all that. He would care if he was looking at spending some time in jail though.
I feel that countries that harbor or ignore purveyors of malware / badware should be ostracized from the world community. The best way to do that would be to not allow any electronic money transfers to or from these countries. They would soon find themselves in the position of needing large trunks of cash to pay for imports and receive large sums of cash for the exports; a true disincentive to trade. Their alternative would be to stop those that interfere with international commerce and \ or are fraudulent.