People always try and distniguish between a virus and a piece of spyware. A virus is described as "a segment of self-replicating code planted illegally in a computer program, often to damage or shut down a system or network." A piece of spyware is known as "Any type of software that transmits information without the user's knowledge."
Now to me, I know when I have spyware. It's the reason my desk has the massive head shaped indents of spending hours finding the tricky little pieces which hide away from my SPYBOT protection, after worming it's way into my computer. Viruses on the other hand, I don't know about, unless my computer feels I need to know one tried to rip my hard drive to pieces. These definitions I feel are abit outdated and vague now. To be honest, the majority of spyware is placed illegally, and viruses transmits information, whether it be email contacts or other information which allows the virus to pass onto other systems.
Basically I find spyware annoying. It my just be because I'm in a bad mood after making two call outs today to homes miles away from my office, to find thousands of pieces of spyware. Over the phone, one of these customers said their computer was covered in viruses. So I explained to him how to scan his computer for viruses using an online program. "It says '0 Viruses found'!" When I got there, I was hit by something like 72 popup Internet Explorer windows. The computer was chugging along at a silly speed trying to keep up. I found 1244 pieces of spyware between scanning with Ad Aware and Spybot. Apparently his son has been trying to find free MP3s on the internet. Good old free MP3's. He didn't find any. He just left his dad with a bill if his dad had gone anywhere else. I refuse to charge for getting rid of spyware though. People shouldn't have to suffer.
One thing I would like to know is WHY? It may be a question that everyone asks but what do the bastards who make spyware get out of it? Because I don't know one person who clicks on any of the links. Doesn't matter how many times it pops up to try and persude me. Maybe they just get a thrill from knowing millions of people are either wasting their time downloading programs to get rid or chucking away money to greedy computer "technicians" like MR PC DOCTOR who will sort your problems. But that's a moan for another day. I'll try and be a bit postive next post.
Can I get some feedback on how I'm going for two posts? I'm intrigued to hear if anyone is reading this.
By the way - this gave me a bit of a chuckle - enjoy. Click here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment