Hi all,
I'm not really up on the latest spyware smack-down programs so I just run Ad-Aware, updating it whenever an update is available.

I am wondering if there are any spyware smackers that run resident like a realtime virus-scan program?

I'd like to have Ad-Aware constantly running to check all files incoming and give them a digital enema, however I don't see that it has that function available. I want to use it at both work and home. Some of our users take their laptops home and you know the long story with kids/internet and complaints if you lock things down etc.

The next step would be to find out who payrolls the writers of the more malicious programs and go around to their houses to have a little chat. Something along the lines of what a plunge-router or hammer-drill can do to shin bones or similar topics would be discussed. I don't have a problem with the programmers (mostly) as they need to feed their families, put fuel in the car etc, but the people who bankroll these projects need a talking too.

Where will it stop? Will it be that everyone runs a dual-proc rig so that one processor does the normal work whilst the other runs real-time scanners/parsers and heuristic checkers for virii, spyware, trojans, embedded links in media files etc.

On that, I'm really looking forward to digital television becoming mainstream so that reference files for digital ads can be put out so that your computer can do some pattern matching on each stream and block streams that match known advertisements. I'd much rather my computer block recurring ads for McD's etc and replace it with my acquariam screensaver for the 3.5 mins of ads every 8.5 mins.

Enough rant.
F

Originally posted by felix:

"Hi all,
I'm not really up on the latest spyware smack-down programs so I just run Ad-Aware, updating it whenever an update is available.

I am wondering if there are any spyware smackers that run resident like a realtime virus-scan program?"

Yes, Spybot... absolutely free too!

(And, what I like about it is is the fact it was programmed & created in Borland Delphi Object Pascal programming!)

Originally posted by felix:

"I'd like to have Ad-Aware constantly running to check all files incoming and give them a digital enema, however I don't see that it has that function available. I want to use it at both work and home. Some of our users take their laptops home and you know the long story with kids/internet and complaints if you lock things down etc."

Full model of Ad-Aware does that, resident scanning. You'd have to purchase that... Spybot is the one to get for this though, because it does that, & for free!

Originally posted by felix:

"The next step would be to find out who payrolls the writers of the more malicious programs and go around to their houses to have a little chat. "

LOL, oh of course, no doubt!

Originally posted by felix:

"Something along the lines of what a plunge-router or hammer-drill can do to shin bones or similar topics would be discussed. I don't have a problem with the programmers (mostly) as they need to feed their families, put fuel in the car etc, but the people who bankroll these projects need a talking too. "

I'd wager, if I were to make a guess on alot of these? Two sources:

1.) Kids... with nothing better to do!

or

2.) Terrorists - sound radical/far-out? Maybe... but then, spending time on this type of thing would be the work of either "idle hands" or, someone being financed to create such mayhem!

Takes time to create code that actually does something, alot of time & effort usually, IF it is written from scratch & not some altered macro (which is the case with alot of worms/virus now) from the code of others.

Your theory of it being financed only makes sense to me @ least for terrorist groups. Well, that or the folks who create antivirus &/or antispyware... more profit in prevention than a cure is the reasoning on the latter here on my part.

Microsoft is FINALLY doing the right thing in XP SP2: Marking the OS + process heaps & stacks as protected, with memory allocations being marked READ-ONLY by default... means that things like buffer overflows for instance, will be a thing of the past!

If anything will put a halt to large tracts of this madness? This will...

Originally posted by felix:

"Where will it stop? Will it be that everyone runs a dual-proc rig so that one processor does the normal work whilst the other runs real-time scanners/parsers and heuristic checkers for virii, spyware, trojans, embedded links in media files etc."

It's probably NEVER going to stop, & it's sad... just like the phenomenon of virus' never did.

Once the creator of "concept" did his work, & others got ahold of the sourcecode outta the macro in in the Ms-Word doc it was in iirc, which is NOT tough to do, it spawned an "entire race of machines" like these...

I think, in a "StRaNgE" way, they are their own life-form... I did a paper on it in college in fact & got an A+ on it. I mean think about it: They reproduce, defend themselves, consume/destroy, have a sort of "AI", & mimic alot of life functions!

On SMP:

True dual physical CPU's may not be, but there IS already the manifestation of hyperthreading... & from now on, this IS the norm! Dual core processors are on the way as well from both AMD & Intel, so consider multiple processor systems the norm (I always figured one day it would be) from here on out into the future.

Originally posted by felix:

"On that, I'm really looking forward to digital television becoming mainstream so that reference files for digital ads can be put out so that your computer can do some pattern matching on each stream and block streams that match known advertisements. I'd much rather my computer block recurring ads for McD's etc and replace it with my acquariam screensaver for the 3.5 mins of ads every 8.5 mins.

Enough rant.
F"

I'm with you on that...



* On Advertising in general on the web/online vs. T.V.: However, even if I do not like it, it IS how sites keep running!

(Kind of a 'catch-22' situation really on adbanners (popups suck no matter HOW you cut it though)).

APK

P.S.=> LOL, could you imagine if there was ads on the phone as you spoke? Thank goodness that it would be TOO much of a pain/hassle to good service & that private companies fund the phone system via billing though... multiplexed data transmits or not, on a phone it would be TOO much hell! Human beings I don't think @ least, can 'mulititask' & process sonic data as well as they can visual data... we are, primarily, visually oriented! apk