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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing dept.

Call it Adware, Malware, Spyware, Crapware, it's simply unwanted. Every non-technical relative I've ever talked to has toolbars they apparently can't see, apps running in the background, browser home pages set to Russian Google clones, and they have no idea how it got that way.

Read on to learn how they get that way.

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Discussing the Future of SN: The Next Six Months 158 comments

Now that the latest release of slashcode has settled, and we're moving ahead towards towards getting the site self-sufficient, it's time to look at our longer term plans. I have talked about the direction I want SN to go, as well as some of the trouble getting from here to there. With the help of the staff, what I present here is a more unified plan on how we get from here to there for the community to evaluate. This should however be considered a draft, so, as usual, feel free to rip it to shreds, etc. In short, here's what I want to get done over the next six months:

  • SoylentNews PBC reaches self-sufficiency
  • Beginnings of a major "port and polish" on both content and the site itself
  • Build a more uniformed sense of community throughout the site
  • Compilation and completion of a "style and policy" manual
  • Preparations for running a crowd-funding campaign to get initial capital
  • Define, with assistance and input from the community, a mechanism for community governance
  • If possible, try and reach out to other not-for-profit journalist organizations for advice and guidance
  • Bootstrap the NFP umbrella from the B-corp's funds
  • Define a framework for which original content will be used on SoylentNews
  • Identify people who may be willing to work in a journalistic capacity with us
  • With the above frameworks in place, fundraise
  • Original content launches on SN

As usual, I'm going to go through these one by one, so check past the break

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:14AM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:14AM (#82972) Homepage Journal

    That's an abomination. How do people/the devs go along with this stuff? If your job requires you to do clearly unethical things, QUIT YOUR JOB. I don't want to hear shit about 'his family', that argument can be used to justify theft from grocery stores. If you have an unethical job, QUIT.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:19AM (#82974)

      Clearly someone thought it was OK to do that stuff. So who tells you the developer didn't?

      • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:20AM

        by Subsentient (1111) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:20AM (#82975) Homepage Journal

        Then they get a swift kick in the testicles.

        --
        "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
        • (Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:01AM

          by Horse With Stripes (577) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:01AM (#82989)

          I hope you've got a lot of time and new boots. This shitty practice is getting more and more prevalent. If they've got a 'download manager' find another site.

          They do this to get even more revenue from their download sites that are strewn with misleading 'Download' buttons that are actually ads and use a majority of their screen real estate for ads.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:38AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:38AM (#82979) Journal

      If the alternative is to starve. Motivation can be very strong. "Irresistable offers" can also be a factor.

      But then people also sell guns and drugs even to kids.,.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Lagg on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:34AM

        by Lagg (105) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:34AM (#82994) Homepage Journal

        Oh please, I quit my job and went into freelancing specifically because of this exact situation. I knew this starvation argument would come up (we need a new name for that, how about Glutton's Dilemma?). I may not like freelancing and I'm in poverty yeah but it beats being even more unhappy writing malware. That whole argument of "but if you quit you'll starve" is just such nonsense. Needing to eat does not excuse you from despicable behavior, nor does the simple fact that it's your job. If I were to have written DICE's malware that they used on sourceforge I seriously doubt "but it's okay Lagg, you need to eat" would be a consideration on anyone's mind. Especially when this stuff wrecks people's own systems and takes hours from their own work to fix it.

        --
        http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Subsentient on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:06AM

          by Subsentient (1111) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:06AM (#82996) Homepage Journal

          I didn't like you when we first met, but I'm liking you more and more all the time.

          --
          "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:25AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:25AM (#83004)

          When standard business practice in your area is to not pay your bills until the company goes bankrupt, losing everything in your life might cause you a few problems.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by BradTheGeek on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:30PM

          by BradTheGeek (450) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:30PM (#83029)

          It is not just a starvation argument, though to many that is very, very real. Some people just have no ethics or their morals are easily bought. Much of this is put together overseas anyway, but the people who should be prosecuted are the managers and owners of the overarching companies. Unfortunately they are most likely shells within shells with just a lawyer and a manager, and a fake phone number that routs to a hotel room in Delhi.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:06PM

          by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:06PM (#83206)

          I'm glad you have the skill sets and experience to make it as a freelancer. Some of us are not as lucky, please try and understand that just because you can do something doesn't mean everyone else can. Did you know that the inability to intuitively understand that other people have different viewpoints is a sign of Autism?

          --
          "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
          • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:38PM

            by Lagg (105) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:38PM (#83260) Homepage Journal

            Did you know that essentially calling people retarded because they have a problem with "I was doing my job" as a license to be an ass is a cowardly and obvious lack-of-argument? I'm not special. Any programmer worth their salt can freelance. In fact I'd wager that there are people much better suited for it than I am because I tend to be slow due to being meticulous to a fault or experiencing burnout. Hell, any programmer that isn't worth their salt can freelance since I regularly play janitor duty cleaning up after people in india, nigeria or russia that hit the double whammy of both being incompetent freelancers and incompetent outsourcing. Either way though my experience isn't luck, it was accrued through years of learning and work. Don't try to attribute my skill to alignment of the cosmos in an attempt to make it seem like aforementioned asshats don't have a choice because that's just plain dishonest. It's also dishonest to twist it into me telling people explicitly to freelance, I only did it because there was nothing better at the time. I also live in a desert. In most cases there are going to be better companies that at the very least don't try to get their employees to write malware for them.

            --
            http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:34AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:34AM (#83314)

              You know that response pretty much confirms the diagnoses of an "inability to intuitively understand that other people have different viewpoints." Whether that is autism or not is another question.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @12:45AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @12:45AM (#83773)

            Did you know that the inability to intuitively understand that other people have different viewpoints is a sign of Autism?

            When you look/talk with someone, mentally slip into their shoes and ask youself as them 'What's in it for me?'. Once you detect the answer to that question and if their unspoken request/demand is unreasonable, politely excuse yourself and leave--you were about to be exploited. With practice, you can detect this via body language before the other person even opens their mouth....

            The 99%ers DON'T have a mountain of cash to live off of so they have to either:

            1) Cope and survive as best they can and as honorably as they can--always striving for 'equivalent exchange' (pay what they can / favor now for favor later) if they ask someone for help and voicing/expressing their genuine gratitude when others help them TRULY FOR FREE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO STRINGS ATTACHED!...

            2) Use guile, lies, and trickery to survive at all costs while exploiting anyone and everyone as needed as much as possible--treating them ultimately as clueless suckers or marks.

            This skill works wonderfully with any written text put out by a company of some sort if you are a 99%er and take to heart this simple axiom: WORK EQUALS MONEY EQUALS SURVIVAL!

            Once you realize that, you realize that businesses will do anything it takes to hire someone with recruitment ads like 'work for us and have fun and excitement!' Those are lies at worst and exaggerations at best. Employees are SPECIFICALLY hired to create more value for the company owners, stockholders (if any), and executive staff than is paid out to them in wages. The instant that is no longer the case, the employees are laid off or fired. As it is said, 'nothing personal--just business.' :P When you have extremely little/no money in most of the world, you are treated like trash, kept at arms length by other human beings higher up on the socioeconomic ladder than you, and constantly harassed by police for vagrancy when they see you because you (look like you) have no lasting/permanent place to stay off the streets out of their sight and the sights of the business owners who pay their salaries through taxes. This is the reason for all the 'no loitering/panhandling' laws/signs around the world. Business owners do whatever it takes to make consumers comfortable so they will spend money at their place of business. And thus the poor and needy are swept under a rug or run out of town to become someone else's problem.... :(

            If you are fortunate enough to do something you TRULY love, you will do it for free. You will even do it essentially for free when you are overworked and underpaid because you'd hate working at any other type of job. The cash-obsessed see people like this as clueless idiots. The ones who are 'in the know' and in such a situation accept that 'money isn't everything' and live their life the best they can WITHOUT trying to take advantage of someone in order to get it!

            In closing, this 'BS detector' is not a sign of Autism, it is a NECESSARY self-preservation skill required to SURVIVE in a world fueled by greed and fear....

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @07:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @07:48AM (#84622)

          Well first, I thought that starvation argument was thrown to justify grocery store theft.

          Second, if it ever comes down to "my survival" versus "your survival", I'll instantly choose "my survival". Sorry about that. The objective of ehtics, society, the legal system and other such devices is to gauge the odds so that "beneficial for me" and "beneficial for everyone in general" will align. When people need to commit despicable acts, the proper course is to remove that need. Getting angry about people not being completely altruistic is like getting angry at volcanoes or gravity.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:01PM

      by Magic Oddball (3847) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:01PM (#83014) Journal

      I can understand that argument if the person has no dependents -- or, if they do, for truly, TRULY vile actions that cause severe physical harm to other people or animals.

      A huge part of taking on dependents (whether kids, a disabled partner/relative, or even pets) is that their physical/emotional well-being really *needs* to come before our preferences. If we can't make that kind of sacrifice, we have no business creating/gaining dependents in the first place, as letting them suffer physically or emotionally is *far* more unethical than the overwhelming majority of malware.

      That's especially the case as the vast majority of malware infects the system as the result of the user's own actions, and when it comes to the tech community or our friends/relatives, it can only infect the OS because the person *chose* to run it rather than something else. They made their decision as teens/adults, there's no call to have *others* suffer as a result.

      Yes, it can be used to justify things like robbing a store; sometimes that's the most ethical option. (You might find moral development theory [wikipedia.org] interesting.) Of course, the logic behind just about any decision can be used to justify illegal or horrific behavior if it's pushed out to a great enough extreme -- that doesn't mean it's a reasonable leap of logic to make.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:48PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:48PM (#83034)

      "If your job requires you to do clearly unethical things"

      Mine requires that I burn about a gallon of gasoline a day, although there's no reason I couldn't telecommute other than dinosaurs don't adjust to change very well.

      So that gasoline I'm wasting means I'm directly financing people who think its fun to land jetliners in both civilian and legit military target buildings, and lots of americans and brown local people had to die to get me that gas. Some kind of math problem along the lines of (gallons of oil I've used in numerous formats over the last two decades or so) / (gallons of oil pumped in the middle east) * (number of brown people killed by USA in process of taking our oil away from them) I'm probably directly responsible at a personal level for a significant fraction of a dead person in the 3rd world.

      And if my boss would just refuse to employ me, the lack of money would cause me and my whole family to eventually die, preventing enormous environmental damage in general also I occasionally eat cooked dead factory farmed livestock, so those animals are being tortured indirectly because of my job that allows me to afford that kinda stuff. And then there's probably a couple political prisoners and sweatshop employees in China practically dedicated to making cheap plastic shit for me to buy. If you take the small and shrinking number of people in the USA still permitted by our leaders to be in the middle class (or not demoted to lower class, at least not yet) and compare that to the number of Chinese factory workers, its probably a pretty close ratio.

      About the only good thing I have to say for myself is my car was built in Japan by civilized management, so nothing on me there, and my house was built a long time ago by Americans not illegals so I'm not on the hook for how the illegals are mistreated as a permanent psuedo-slave underclass, again nothing on me there.

      So yeah, I have a super unethical job before I even log into the computer. You can see how a wolf might not feel so bad about how the sheep he's hunting feel, especially if he's doing much worse stuff just from the commute and eating food.

      • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:15PM

        by jimshatt (978) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:15PM (#83081) Journal
        Really, the problem isn't even ethics (on which you are spot on BTW). It's about the surgical *removal* of ethics by overusing statistical analysis. The CEOs don't even look at the stuff they're producing so how can they determine if it's ethical or not? They just look at the graph and push for the direction that makes the most money.

        Very likely the same CEOs are annoyed as hell when they get tricked into installing or buying stuff.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:05PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:05PM (#83225)

      If your job requires you to do clearly unethical things, QUIT YOUR JOB.

      If enough did that, the bureaucracies of the world would be decimated.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by lhsi on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:37AM

    by lhsi (711) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:37AM (#82978) Journal

    Link text smells a little like clickbait. Is the article title "You Won't Believe How These Toolbars Got Installed" or something?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:46AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @09:46AM (#82982) Homepage

    Wait til this guy hears about the Holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 1) by Horse With Stripes on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:05AM

      by Horse With Stripes (577) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:05AM (#82990)

      He'll never read about them because his news feeds get redirected to Happy Best Korea Fun News Site, now with more Smiley Fest and Great Leader is Greater Than Great crossword with '1 Across' and '1 Down' being the only clues: How Great is our Great Leader?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:17PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:17PM (#83048) Journal

      Bigger evil doesn't excuse less evil acts.

      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:43PM

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:43PM (#83127)

        * Unless Apple is part of the argument, in which case we switch to 'the biggest target' argument and then never follow up.

        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:52PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:52PM (#83219)

        Yeah, we shouldn't forget that the holocaust was still pretty bad despite worse things have happened since.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:38PM

        by wonkey_monkey (279) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:38PM (#83275) Homepage

        I didn't say it did. Just saying that getting all hyperbolic about it ("pure evil") might just indicate a slight lack of perspective.

        --
        systemd is Roko's Basilisk
  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Geezer on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:17AM

    by Geezer (511) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @10:17AM (#82993)

    The WWW has been around for, what, 14 years now? That's not counting the old AOL & Prodigy days, and AOL was (and still is) in itself crapware. We have an entire generation who has grown up on the internet. You'd think we'd have a generational pass-down of one very basic tenet of internet survival: Don't click on every god-damned pop-up offer you see!

    Sure, browser designers could build in defenses, but at what cost in operability and user experience?

    If the general user public can't grasp the concept that unscrupulous webmasters want to install shitware at every oportunity, then the devil take them. Maybe the consumer protection bureaucrats can craft a rule that requires an abridged copy of Internet for Dummies to ship with every internet-connected device.

    None of the attack vectors listed in TFA are new. The web isn't new. If a 30-year-old shitwit winds up with six tool bars, three anti-virus programs, four media players, and a Chinese default search engine, maybe said shitwit shouldn't be on the internet.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:01PM

      by theluggage (1797) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:01PM (#83015)

      Don't click on every god-damned pop-up offer you see!

      True, but that doesn't restore the karma of (e.g.) websites that go out of their way to trick you into downloading the wrong thing. You know the routine: click on the "download that file I wanted" link, and instead of the file you wanted you get a page with a big green "DOWNLOAD NOW" button that downloads crapware and a tiny plain text link at the bottom that downloads what you actually wanted. Or legitimate products from apparently reputable publishers that install crapware toolbars if you fail to untick a tiny box in the installer.

      Not sure what can be done - maybe someone can devise a set of 'ethical download' standards that software developers can write into their licenses: it wouldn't stop the true malware sites, but it might inspire reputable websites to take more responsibility for clearly distinguishing ads from content.

      And don't get me started on even legitimate applications that silently install pointless "update managers" or "helpers" that auto-start on boot (e.g. Android File Transfer for Mac and Samsung's Kies Android Sync software each install helpers/drivers that stop the other one from working).

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:16PM

        by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:16PM (#83046)

        My favourite examples: Paint.NET [getpaint.net] gives you misleading download links. The actual link takes you to another download page, itself with a misleading download link. Makes you want to give up and use Pinta [wikipedia.org] instead - I simply can't safely point non-technical acquaintances at the Paint.NET page.

        Also, Oracle Java for Windows *still* (last time I checked) bundles some bullshit toolbar.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:36AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:36AM (#83785)

          ...the direct link is 'random' and generated by a script a-la sourceforge

          If that is the case, if you have a domain, upload it there, password protect it and give them the password. Be sure to tell them to keep the password private so you don't run up a sky high bandwidth bill with your webhost.

          Any other solution I could come up with is just too complicated for new internet users.

          Nowadays all one-click webhosts are all ad-driven for revenue and CAPTCHAed and delay timer'ed to minimuze abuse on the 'free side' trying to get you to pay for fast 'premium access' to the downloadable content DON'T DO IT!!!

          Read why here:

          http://stopfilelockers.com/ [stopfilelockers.com]

          You can't win that way.... :(

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @08:12AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 23 2014, @08:12AM (#84624)

            Didn't see any why's there. Looks like an antipiracy site with atypical target audience.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:40PM (#83062)

      The WWW has been around for, what, 14 years now? That's not counting the old AOL & Prodigy days, and AOL was (and still is) in itself crapware.

      More like ~20 years, actually. Not everyone used the WWW via AOL, especially outside the US.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:01PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @07:01PM (#83205) Journal

      I have a vague recollection of these things you speak of, malware, virii, tool bars, media players, etc. Then I switched to Linux and all of those issues vanished into the ether. I switched everyone else in my extended family over, too, and they haven't looked back either.

      Now, I'm no FOSS partisan. It's just that when you use FOSS, all those plagues of the Information Age just go away.

      The only thing I haven't been able to solve yet is how to get first-world bandwidth in Brooklyn, NY.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:12PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:12PM (#83229) Journal

        You assume USA is a first-world? only spotty parts of it are .. :P
        Don't worry. The congress and senate is working hard to turn the whole country into something like a second world class country.

        The solution is usually to move or fix your own link. Especially find out how far any real connectivity are and then how to build a link to that spot.

        Linux seems to have a problem with systemd these days. I'm sure it can be fixed. It just needs some people with decision mandate to ax it and clean up the remains. A tip is the BSD family.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:14PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:14PM (#83231) Journal

      Computer Darwin evolution at work .. ? :D

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:13AM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:13AM (#82999)

    "Every non-technical relative I've ever talked to has toolbars they apparently can't see, apps running in the background, browser home pages set to Russian Google clones, and they have no idea how it got that way."

    They bought a PC to save $100 instead of a mac. And he somehow doesn't have any non-technical relatives with macs, although all my non-technical relatives have macs along with some of the technical ones. I got my sister in law to get a mac and all my support problems went away. Got a mac for my wife and all my support problems went away. Its very convenient.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by microtodd on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:51AM

      by microtodd (1866) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:51AM (#83009) Homepage Journal

      Buying a Mac might be a good solution. Personally, on a Win7 box, I prefer Chrome because it comes with a bunch of tools (like Flash) already installed and ready and it keeps itself up-to-date in the background. FF does pretty good too, and I guess I could teach my relatives about the FF app store instead of using Google to search for a needed plugin or tool.

      I just went through this last week. A relative needed Flash. This was not a cheap-o laptop...it was in fact the same model that I used as a professional developer for a while (we bought them at the same time at a Black Friday sale), and I had wiped and reinstalled both of them, and also bumped the RAM. But she needed Flash, googled Flash and clicked and installed the first thing that came up. Next thing you know, she's got Hulk Hogan as a browser home page and popups asking for her CC to "optimize her computer".

      It actually wasn't that hard a cleanup. Uninstall and adware scan seemed to clean it up. (Copilot 2.0 worked really well for this). I thought it was interesting that the software actually behaved when I uninstalled it. This told me something: these guys (companies, developers, dudes trying to make money) aren't necessary illegal or blatantly unethical, but they are acting somewhat shady. Sort of like a high-interest used car dealer or a telemarketer. Not really evil, staying on the "legal" side of the law, but still (IMHO) being pretty shady and preying upon people who don't know any better.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:11PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:11PM (#83019)

        "Uninstall and adware scan seemed to clean it up."

        Hows the credit card sniffer doing that you didn't catch? Windows is just too expensive. The related costs are spectacular.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by microtodd on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:19PM

          by microtodd (1866) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:19PM (#83023) Homepage Journal

          Hmmm. Come to think of it her CC number did get stolen a few months ago. She thought it was the Target thingy but maybe it was from her PC.

          Dang it. Now I'm obliged to go check her 'puter. Thanks a lot, VLM!

          (j/k, in case your sarcasm-detector still needs coffee this morning)

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Buck Feta on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:15PM

        by Buck Feta (958) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:15PM (#83080) Journal

        > she's got Hulk Hogan as a browser home page

        You can't just tempt me with that and not provide a link!

        --
        - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @11:56AM (#83011)

      Because Macs don't have this problem at all, right?

      Right guys? ......guys?

      AW SHIT.

      http://www.maclife.com/article/news/yontoo_adware_trojan_infecting_macs_heres_how_stop_it [maclife.com]
      http://www.thesafemac.com/mac-adware-menace-continues/ [thesafemac.com]
      http://www.thesafemac.com/arg-spigot/ [thesafemac.com]
      http://www.securemac.com/cnet_adware_removal_guide.php [securemac.com]
      http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2013/10/14/beware-of-genieo-adware-on-apple-computers/ [speedofcreativity.org]

      Oh, you miss the BitDefender garbage on your PC now? Good news: it's available for Mac and it'll remove all that other bad stuff for you! http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=16862 [net-security.org]

      Keep living in your fantasy world where Macs aren't computers like every other computer and never have issues.

      • (Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:08PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:08PM (#83018)

        "never have issues."

        Oh I never claimed that. All that matters is something thats a weekly/monthly level problem on PCs for her mac and her usage is probably like a "once every couple lifetimes" problem. And its so cheap to avoid all that trouble.

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by LaminatorX on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:03PM

        by LaminatorX (14) <laminatorxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:03PM (#83041)

        Macs aren't invulnerable, but in practice the sailing is still a hell of a lot smoother. I've not bothered with antivirus system on an Apple machine since John Norstad stopped updating Disinfectant. On Windows that would have been insane, but I've gone well over a decade with zero problems.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:58PM

      by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:58PM (#83036)

      Yes ... I tend to agree that the Mac is not as vulnerable as the PC and is a good choice for people who don't want to know how computers work. Believe it or not, I even have a Mac laptop because it's easy to run most Linux software development tools on it, and you don't really have to do anything because it's a single hardware and software package.

      And no ... the problem is that Apple is de-Mac-ifying the Mac and turning it into a big iPad. It's slowly becoming not general-purpose computer. I'm alarmed by the decline as Apple both ignores traditional computing and tries to pull Mac users into the iOS walled garden. At least PCs are general purpose computers, and Metro's walled garden can be ignored. For now. The whole trend away from general purpose computing and towards content consumption is alarming.

      The whole computer landscape is starting to look like putting people into straight jackets and padded cells for their own protection. Yes, you're much safer, but your freedom is gone. I don't think that's a good thing.

      --
      (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
      • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:44PM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:44PM (#83066)

        It does look pretty bad. I'm not too worried though. PC gamers and software developers will keep machines more general purpose. Both groups tend to buy the new high-end hardware every few years. Almost every other group out there just wants something cheap. There may be more walled gardens in the coming future but there will always be a few sandboxes to play in.

        --
        SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:03PM (#83075)

        the Mac is not as vulnerable as the PC

        the Mac is the PC

        FTFY, don't get fooled by marketing sound bytes...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 21 2014, @01:16AM (#83782)

        This is TRULY why Macs are being 'iPad'ed.

        Once the transformation of the Mac into a 'desktop iPad' is complete, you can no longer 'download anything you want' while inside the iOS 'walled garden'. You won't be able to write your own software anymore unless you spend big-time $$$ to buy the 'devkit' so you either (buy and) download an approved program that does what you want (you hope) or you go without.

        I say this as a long-time 'Wintel' user.

        The REAL endgame is to turn ALL general purpose computers into 'appliances' for the sole motives of profit and control. The 'bonus', such that it is, is security with all the hardware/software security modules in place in the system maintaining the chain of trust from power on and boot up to shutdown.

        Even then, i've read stories about ways to subvert this chain of trust to slip malware on a system--it was eye opening! o_O;

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @12:15PM (#83021)

    the real 3vil is that even thou I dont run the latest "crapware frame work v8" -aka- the most popular OS on the planet it still affexts me.
    obviously I dont want a fixed ip in this l3tter world but then I get a "new" ip address every so often and then I inherit the ip address from a person with crapware infection and get hammered because the command and control still thinks that a infection is on this (now mine) ip address.
    thats the real beauty of the evilness.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ticho on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:35PM

    by ticho (89) on Tuesday August 19 2014, @01:35PM (#83059) Homepage Journal

    Why is this a story? This is something well-known for over a decade now. Is it supposed to be a rantspace for IT geeks, or does the article bring something new that I have missed?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @02:05PM (#83076)

    Lemme guess... guy used windoze?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @03:38PM (#83126)

      Lemme guess... guy used windoze?

      Let me guess you are 15?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 19 2014, @08:48PM (#83239)

        Lemme guess... guy used windoze?

        Let me guess you are 15?

        Well the slang has been around close to thirty years. Most don't even notice when you say "windoze" out loud rather then saying "Windows". I would say it has been in reduced written usage since XP originally came out. Is 8.x bringing it back? And these days, what 15 year old types a word with that many characters in it when they don't have to? Probably a bit of a misattribution to blame the current generation of 15 year olds for that comment.

        Of course you probably meant they were still stuck in the same frame of mind as they were at 15 and the term was more popular.