Taking the fight to the Spyware writers

[Hola hoop]

An interesting thought. Hackers base a lot of their ethos on the fact that things as restricted, that the internet is no longer a global community of ideas, but a huge commerical market without the option of walking away and saying no thank you.
As it stands, connect to the internet is akin to walking down a market road and rather than the traders trying to tempt you in with bargins, they grab u off the street and demand you at least stay and browse their shop or they will screw up you car!

Apart from all the companies trying desperately to stem the tide of spyware pollution, there is another group who could pool their efforts together and possibly make it very difficult for the sypware and adaware writers to do their jobs, while at the same time, us users do not have to contend with the trojans and virus's they keep churning out month after month.

If the hacker community were to turn their sights towards the area of forced commercialisation, that would be a very very interesting battle indeed, and i believe that the growing awareness in the home user would steer support towards the hackers efforts rather than against them as is the case now. With all the legal "grey" areas surrounding spyware firms and the fact that by-in-large opinion is against this type of intrusion, it would certainly make interesting legal headlines, "spyware company to take action against spy"

Any thoughts?

[zybch]

The biggest hurdle is that the unwitting net surfer usually agrees to all the forced comercialisation, especially newbies who blindly click on the 'yes' button every time it appears.

[ukulele]

You plan would never fly. Hackers ain't out there to help anyone. Now maybe if you start a hacker church and convince them to change their evil ways you might find a good one.

[Hola hoop]

actaully i would tend to disagree there. The hackers who arent there to help anyone are the noob hackers and script kiddies as with them its all about posturing, showing off what they can do so they try and do as much damage as possible.

In the "young hacker" and "young virus writer" enviroment, sucess and ratings are a reflection on how much damage, both social and economical, is done due to their backdoor or virus.
Why would anyone else release such prolific virus's into the wild. It is not corporate sabotage if a kid who wants to prove himself to the hacker community mods a virus to make it a big threat.

The "real" hackers, it is estimated in Britian total between 700- 1000. These are the leet and rarley get caught and rarely cause any damage for the sake of it. Like the Electronic Disturbence Movement who created Floodnet, they had a purpose and once they acheived their purpose the hacking ended. others have used Floodnet for DOS atttacks but these usually are the newbies.

It is these guys that you would want on your side, not an army of 30,000 script kiddies.

[fishybawb]

If you're only targetting the people who aren't causing the problem, how is that going to help anything?

[Hola hoop]

Originally posted by fishybawb
If you're only targetting the people who aren't causing the problem, how is that going to help anything?

? No im not saying that at all, im just saying the "leet" hackers are the ones who can help against the spyware firms, and not all hackers are just plain sadistic or want to cause damage.
Is anyone who takes a big interest in computers a nerdy geek?

Lol fishybawb i dont know who you thought i was targeting hehe

[j.m@talk]

Treat hackers like burglars ...... Same fing really

[ukulele]

Would you hire a burgular to set up your home alarm system? It's because the computer security industry hired some of these jerks in the first place that we are in such a mess. The public would be better served if we shipped them all to Texas and hung the lot.

[Beemer]

I don't believe any hacker would get involved in the destructive side of either side.

Hacker or Cracker

Hollywood has done some damage to a good group of people.

Cheers!

[ukulele]

Originally posted by Beemer
I don't believe any hacker would get involved in the destructive side of either side.

Hacker or Cracker

Hollywood has done some damage to a good group of people.

Cheers!

Don't flatter yourself. These people out there in cyberspace busting into computers and stealing peoples identities by the millions aren't good guys by any stretch of the imagination. They are little more then greedy, self serving, punks who contribute nothing and cause only expense and misery for the honest people trying to use the internet. Why would we "need" them to point out security flaws if we didn't have them to worry about in the first place?

[Beemer]

You missed the point entirely. Click the link.

Cheers!

[ukulele]

Originally posted by Beemer
You missed the point entirely. Click the link.

Cheers!

I read the link. It's nothing but bull written by someone with a guilty conscience. A hacker and cracker are one and the same in todays symantics. It is only hackers who try to make a distinction. They could call themselves socially responsible computer security testors and they would still just be hackers and crackers.

[Cyan]

Who would the hackers be attacking actually?

There's not some central 209.864.246.46 Spyware server or anything.

Too much trouble.

Fight it with the law, use your state representatives.

[Beemer]

If you think so. You must be right.

Cheers!

[Nathan G.]

The best way to send a message to the companies that use these aggressive marketing techniques is to NEVER purchase any goods or services provided by these companies. Hopefully they will go out of business, or at least not have funds to hire spyware writers.

Perhaps I am being a little optimistic.
I mean... look at all the infomercials on TV late at night. Someone must be actually buying all that garbage. Those infomercials cost a good deal of money to produce/air.

Speak with you consumer dollars.... It is all the "marketing weasels" know or care about.