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If you haven’t read this story in the Washington Post, it’s worth a quick read. It went something like this: -A small group of hackers sent out a bunch of porn spam with a virus/keylogger attached. -A police officer opened one of the emails, and then subsequently logged onto Seisint, a LexisNexis subsidiary. Of course, […]

Word is spreading that Sunbelt is being attacked by Hotbar. Lots of interesting comments from our previous post. Our crack legal team will be writing a response, which we will post for public viewing in the next week or so. For an example of a prior letter, see our letter to iDownload. However, some new […]

Many haven’t seen our research paper on this matter we wrote back in March. Here is a link to our whitepaper on Firefox. In summary, over the past few months security experts have speculated that we could see new spyware and adware crafted for Mozilla Firefox Until now most of this speculation has centered on […]

If you’re a privacy advocate, you’re familiar with the various analogs for slow destruction of civil liberties. The light-dimmer effect is one, something I heard years ago from Arthur Maren. Here’s how it works: You go into a room, and someone turns the light-dimmer down just a few notches every few minutes. After a while, […]

Ari Schwartz of the CDT is testifying before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on “Spyware” today. The link to the webcast is here. He has some great information in that testimony. If you’re a dedicated spyware fighter, it’s worth scanning. Those who were at the CNet Antispyware Workshop will be familiar with […]

Aurora…as in Aurora Borealis, the northern lights, from Latin for “northern dawn”. A word that evokes images of beauty and light. —————————— That’s marketing. The truth isn’t so pretty. April 26, Direct Revenue announces Aurora, a new piece of adware. In the release, they say this: “Direct Revenue CEO Joshua Abram said, ‘Aurora and MyPCTuneUp […]

Update: Situation looks resolved as of this morning. Thread on Broadband Reports here. ACCORDING TO WEBROOT, THIS WAS NOT A HACK. Some jerk(s) are attacking a reputable antispyware vendor. An apparent DNS hack. Some systems are reporting this, some aren’t. Note that if you’re seeing this hack, you aren’t going to be able to send […]

I’m still trying to find the time to actually write a bit about this interesting workshop, but in the meantime, I have some links for you. There were four panels: Session I – Defining spyware and adware Session II – EULAs and you-knows: What is meaningful disclosure?Session III – The Money Game: How adware works […]

The CNET-sponsored antispyware summit yesterday was amazing. Sunbelt was there in force; one journalist speculated to us that Sunbelt might have had the largest contingent outside of the CNET/Download.com staff. I think he’s right. I got in on the red-eye from San Francisco this morning and am still digesting all of the various things that […]

As we wrote earlier this month, eUniverse Intermix had announced had it was being investigated by Elliot Spitzer. Today from Spitzer’s office: Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today sued one of the nation’s leading internet marketing companies, alleging that the firm was the source of “spyware” and “adware” that has been secretly installed on millions of […]