Spyware, Malware, Viruses. I hate them all.
I’ve spent the last three days, on one computer or another, cleaning up what I have come to call CRAPWARE. Crapware is all the stuff that gets installed on your computer, with or without your knowledge, that serves no real purpose except to slow your machine down, make it an unwilling bot, use resources that you need, wastes hard drive space, sends SPAM, add toolbars to your browser, track where you go on the Internet, or simply otherwise is a waste of your time when you’re forced to clean it up.
I currently am working on a laptop that belongs to a member of my Sunday School class. She really only uses the computer for productive things - like writing papers, checking e-mail, etc. Her son, on the other hand, uses it to play games and surf the Internet - A LOT. It currently holds my record for the worst crapware infected computer I have laid my hands on. SUPERAntiSpyware on its first run detected over 4500 threats. That’s right, 4500! That was one user account. I’m scanning it now with the other user account and so far have discovered another 240 threats. I’m almost afraid to see what I’ll find when I run an anti-virus application on it.
What’s sad…is that there are coders out there that are actually wasting their talents writing this crap. Dudes, if you would focus your abilities on productive projects, the Internet would be a safer and more fun place to be. I guess I really shouldn’t complain too much though - you’re keeping me busy.
But think about it guys (and gals). We currently have several distributed processing applications running around the world - some of them are trying to do wonderful things, like find a cure for cancer. With the abilities you obviously have to team computers together (i.e. botnets), you could probably bring these projects a giant leap forward in efficiency. And that was something that just popped in my head while I was writing this post. I’m know there are MANY, MANY other things that could be done with your talent. Besides, the way you’re using your talent now may land your but in jail and find it much poorer when you’re caught. Come on guys (and gals) think a little bigger…
Back to scanning.
