We might just have to accept spyware

[napho]

if we want the free movies, appz , and music to continue.
With spyware being parachuted in while we download it's becoming tougher to fight.
I'm willing to surrender to Cydoor and Aureate in order to continue to get the goods.
How about you guys?

[multi]

I cant sell out to these bastard's now
i've put too much time killing the rubbish software(at least the ones i can find!)and not having them onboard
clagging the system&stealing the band width

So my answer is still a definite 'NO' to spyware

[JackSpratts]

no way. i could maybe see it on a sacrificial pc with no firewall, just running share pgms and no email client but even then i'd worry about sending it out again to unsuspecting users. i'll continue wrestling it off my system for as long as i can and when i can't any longer i'll just stop using the infected stuff. there will always be an app that's spyware free, even if it's a paid version. the problem now is that the great p2ps don't offer the choice. i'd buy grokster in a second if it was spyware and bde proof.

- js.

[assorted]

I don't see the big deal as it's not so hard to remove. If software co's need to make $$ off the people who don't care I don't mind that. Third party software like that stuff for right now appears to be the only way these guys can pay their rent.

If there is a non-spyware free option I take it. If there isn't (like with Audiogalaxy) then I bother to learn how to install it without spyware. And there's always a kind and enterprising user who has hacked it as such.

Mind you, this latest Kazaa/Brilliant Digital weirdness is another story entirely. But I had heard ages ago that the FastTrack people were owned by shifty bastards so I had avoided the client.

[snowman]

Not a chance.

I will not run anything with spyware in it.

This stuff is one step away from viruses & trojan horses and that kind of stuff.

My conputers and information stored on them are both mine and private.

My message is simple: P2P companies deal with it.

[goldie]

ONLY if they pay ME for the privilege.

Fee to be determined after careful consideration.

[Smoketoomuch]

Adware... I don't know... Spyware: NEVER. But then, sometimes the borderlines between the two are vague. If it were the condition for filesharing to let Cydoor and Aureate to operate on my puter, I'd say: fine, I'm willing to compromise that much. BUT! The problem is, there is never only one small Cydoor and Aureate prog. The problem is that these guys don't want you to know what is on your puter. I mean if their business were transparent to the user, we would be INFORMED how exactly these work, and we would have a choice to decide (which we don't have as long as we don't know what happens when we press that yes button) than I'd say OK. But we all know that this is not how it works. We know that Cydoor (despite the fact that now it is not considered spyware) had its own agenda, and they were forced to modify their prog. only after it was found out how it works and because of bad publicity.


So I say that I will never let adware or spyware on my puter, simply because I'm not naive to believe these guys anymore - you can never know what happens when you give your consent to Cydoor or Aureate. Are you sure when you press yes, that it will be only these that you get installed, or that you can uninstall them any time you want (and not with Ad-aware, but with the uninstall option), and during their presence on your puter they won't install other "additional" components, or would not display an ad in which the install button is carefully concealed as a close button, or whatever. As long as I'm not 100% sure that none of this happens I will say: NO (which will be forever perhaps, since I don't believe that this can be regulated or any government is willing to regulate it for pure benevolence, that is, even if they would be willing to regulate it they would use the opportunity to pass legislation that would tighten control over the internet, saying that this is a necessity to prevent spywhere, to which I would say: bullshit.)

[pod]

Originally posted by napho
if we want the free movies, appz , and music to continue.
With spyware being parachuted in while we download it's becoming tougher to fight.
I'm willing to surrender to Cydoor and Aureate in order to continue to get the goods.
How about you guys?

I don't buy that.

You have the free software movement, which has produced such heavy hitters like Apache, Sendmail, Linux, BSD, Samba, Mozilla/Netscape, too many others to mention, all without receiving a single penny in compensation, without a single banner ad served. It would seem like a P2P network would be a piece of cake.

Gnutella was released, and people hacked away on it for months now. All that has to happen is for common protocol to emerge, so all the disparate networks (which do interoperate to some degree) come together. The FastTrack-style multi-tiered network architecture has been proposed for Gnutella almost right away, and some clients implement in various ways already. New research is occuring right now into better ways to organize the network, so that the network is better connected and searches are more exhaustive. Given time something will emerge, and you won't have to punch the X button (or the monkey) to use it.

[twinspan]

Originally posted by assorted
I don't see the big deal as it's not so hard to remove.

First remove CyDoor, then replace the .dll, then remove BDE, then disable Altnet, now get rid of .new.net. Block automatical installation of executables. Block certain hosts. Install a pop-up killer. And then keep your guard up constantly coz any of these nasties might re-install themselves whenever they feel like it. It's starting to be a real pain in the arse, frankly. (Ah, but you avoided FastTrack clients, well done. I would too but I'm addicted to metadata now.)

I won't surrender to spyware. If I can't defeat it, I'd probably just quit P2P as too much of a risk, and so might a lot of people. And's that's not going to serve anybody's interests, not the client-makers, not the advertisers and not the users who remain.

They're shooting themselves in the foot with all this crap (and if they were so stupid to not realize it before, they must be getting the idea now that Kazaa was removed from C/Net on those exact grounds.)

With the speed and ease with which info about these abusive tactics becomes widespread knowledge via the internet, they're fooling themselves if they think they have a viable business model.

(There's an idea: if users can't sue them for spyware [coz of cunningly-written license agreements], sue them for damaging shareholders' interests! Not practising due diligence with regards to future earnings! Heheh, anyone feel like buying shares in Brilliant or Sharman and starting a case?)

[TankGirl]

Well I think that in reality our tech-savvy friend napho will rather surrender to Dawn than to spyware but the question is good and deserves discussion. If we Napsterites - a well-connected online community blessed with many technically skilled people - are having hard time following the latest tricks of spyware vendors and protecting ourselves from them what can an average p2p user without such good contacts do? Not much. Probably run Ad-Aware once a week and pray that it keeps him/her protected from these repeated assaults on his/her privacy.

Like snowman I myself have zero tolerance for spyware. If an application refuses to work with its possible spyware removed I can and will live without it.

As for the true long-term solution to the problem, I fully agree with pod. There is no doubt whatsoever that free software movement will provide us with all the p2p tools we need. There is nothing in FastTrack technology or other existing commercial p2p products - even in the advanced Groove - that cannot be recreated and enhanced by voluntary contributions of community-oriented programmers. It will be done, just look at what happened to Napster technology. However fancy and 'corporate' Napster seemed just a couple of years ago now there is safe and free Napster server software available to anybody willing to set up a server.

So the time window for the the abusive p2p vendors like Kazaa and BDE to make money with our privacy and community resources is limited. They probably understand this even themselves and just try to make a quick buck with any means imaginable while the transitional phase lasts. In this quickly evolving situation we as end users need to protect ourselves as best as we can, preferably shifting our support away from the worst abusers to the non-commercial software and those commercial vendors that seriously seek business models that are not based on systematic violation of user privacy.

- tg

[colinmacc]

I too run a zero tolerance outfit here. I want to know EXACTLY what is on my PC and exactly what it is doing, and I don't want software using up my resources and bandwidth without my say-so.

There will always be a way to circumvent the Scumware, where there's a will there's a way.

[zombywoof]

scumware <<<<<

[snowman]

My computers are not toys. They will not be used as vectors for Internet attacks regardless if the target is my or 1 million computers.

This kind of stuff is intolerable.

Zero Tolerace is the word.

[thinker]

Right after I got Audiogalaxy I got rid of it. Even after 'removal' of it and GAIN I ran Ad-aware and found three dozen things from it - which were the only ad/spyware components on my system - still to remove, most of it Common Files and registry stuff. It's all gone now, I think - no more program files, no folders in the program manager, and no more crap in general. My downloads also picked up, something lagging, I had noticed, in the short time I had AGS.

Just say bloody no when it comes to all that.