Saturday, April 29, 2006
Often it boils down to street smarts
Recently McAfee put up an online quiz where you can test yourself on your ability to spot a web site that will infect you with spyware.
Eventually this came to the attention of a geek discussion forum. The survey's design was harshly critized. with some reason. What I thought was interesting was the degree of background knowledge that geeks take for granted.
One user, by the handle "fafalone", listed some of the clues he considered unquestionably obvious:
Enough of the mealy mouthed euphemisms, tell us what you really think.
I guess a lot of lifetime city dwellers would be equally condescending to a visitor who walked into an urban scam. It's the same kind of situation -- going into a hostile environment without experience.
Let me try to translate what the guy said above into tips you can use, without the namecalling. There are two kinds of free software out there. There are programs written as a hobby by decent people, who often share things they've written for their own use because it doesn't cost them anything. This kind of free software is good and I couldn't do my job without it. Linux is an example.
Then there's the stuff that's "free" to you because it lets someone take over your computer. That's why the word "sponsored" was such a red flag. So is agressive advertising.
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Eventually this came to the attention of a geek discussion forum. The survey's design was harshly critized. with some reason. What I thought was interesting was the degree of background knowledge that geeks take for granted.
One user, by the handle "fafalone", listed some of the clues he considered unquestionably obvious:
Page 2: Left option explicitly states it shows popups in the fine print. Also, rushing EULA acceptance. Open and shut case.and if you haven't figured out what his expectations are,
Page 3: The overemphasis of the word "free" on the left page should immediately arouse the suspicions of an experienced user. The left page just exudes cheapness. The right page looks more professional, better games typically are less likely to contain malware, and there's a forums and contact option. Overwhelming odds that the left page is more likely to contain malware, no contest
...
Page 5/#1: "FREE Sponsored Version"? If you need technical info to guess if a p2p program saying this contains adware, you're a fool.
...
#4: "Unlimited free online calls", "Promote your blog", virus protection... in a P2P program? Dead giveaway even if you've never heard of Kazaa.
There are ways to tell which of those pages are legit, it was based largely on inferring it from the text on the page. If you didn't get at least 6/8 (2 questions are invalid, see below), then you MISSED SOMETHING that indicated spyware. It was there, on the image, no outside information whatsoever was needed, sorry if it hurts your pride.
Enough of the mealy mouthed euphemisms, tell us what you really think.
I guess a lot of lifetime city dwellers would be equally condescending to a visitor who walked into an urban scam. It's the same kind of situation -- going into a hostile environment without experience.
Let me try to translate what the guy said above into tips you can use, without the namecalling. There are two kinds of free software out there. There are programs written as a hobby by decent people, who often share things they've written for their own use because it doesn't cost them anything. This kind of free software is good and I couldn't do my job without it. Linux is an example.
Then there's the stuff that's "free" to you because it lets someone take over your computer. That's why the word "sponsored" was such a red flag. So is agressive advertising.
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