GTO, I'm curious

[Ebo]

GTO, I hope this post doesn't fall under the catagory of "vacuous" but from time to time a question nags me: Isn't it in the best business interest of malware protection providers to actually create new bugs, distribute them, and then provide a fix for a price?

Even long before the days of SpyAxe and Spy Sheriff, it occured to me that Norton and McAfee, two of the most prominent services, would quickly realize a drop in sales if there were not a constant stream of new and debilitating bugs out there. After all, if say in 2000 you bought McAfee's product and it fixed everything and continued to fix everything, then you'd never need to buy a renewal license and ergo, no more profits for McAfee.

Now we see the whole malware "industry" is cutting out the middle man and boldly going straight for your wallet: SpyAxe and Spy Sheriff render a recreational computer user's machine nearly useless, and then offer to fix it, for a price. Of course, they don't fix it, but just run your credit card and rob you.

I don't believe the larger, more well known companies would ever engage in the outright thievery of the Spy Sheriff types, but isn't it at least possible that when a software engineer comes home from a hard day at a legit anti-spyware software company's shop, he gets on his own personal computer and invents a new bug? After all, it's job security, isn't it? :roll:

[GTO]

Ebo, I would fully agree with your opinion, if not only one "but". I think that security software vendors would be interested in creating and distributing new parasites only if their software could really clean each infected system around the globe and eliminate up to 90-100% of all known parasites. However, today security companies look tired of developing a reliable protection from widely spread spyware parasites, worms and trojans like SpyAxe and SpySheriff and, I don't think any of them got well forward with a real antivirus/anti-spyware shield that would not only prevent the infection, but also effectively get rid of it. In other words, security companies simply have no time to secretly create viruses and distribute them. They still are unable to deal with "regular" parasites like SpywareStrike. The appearance of every new threat is considered to be unprofitable until a particular security program is not able to completely remove already known pests.

Nevertheless, I think that you are not far away from the truth. Of course, we'll never know it, unless some Symantec's, McAfee's or _your_favorite_company_here_ spokesmen would say: "Yes, we're creating parasites. Sorry for that." . But one thing is for sure: if there would be no new threats, security companies would never make so much money .

[Ebo]

Thanks GTO,

Your perspective is one I had not considered: That all legitimate anti-malware companies, even the very best of them, have their hands full with the current onslaught of infections so it would be redundant for them to deliberately create new threats when there are so many out there swirling around in cyberspace like so many snowflakes.

My recent encounter with computer crippling bugs has been a real eye-opener. I'm very glad I discovered 2-spyware and that you helped me recover from these pests. The experience of losing ten days worth of computer time is one that I hope I never have to go through again. I guess I had taken for granted how much I depend on my computer for communication, entertainment and work. When it goes down, it's like sensory deprivation.

But there was a good part of this experience as well: Your patient tutoring. What's the old saying? "Give a man a fish, he can eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime." Instead of just fixing someone's problem, you require that the person actually learn how to clean off these infections. In addition to learning something, I came away with some new tools: Hijack This, and Pocket Killbox that will allow me to find and fix some of the less complicated infections myself next time.

Let's hope there isn't a "next time."  



 :wink:

[junior08jr8]

Im also am very thankful that i discovered 2-spyware. before  I discovered this website, I had to run to a store and buy best spyware/virus program that's called " real 1" from microsoft, but not even that program removed or solved my problems with the spywares..Likewise Idon't think Norton,Mcaffe can remove this types of files.

But, Im very thankful that Ifound 2-spyware, it solved my problems and removed them completely with some free programs that are simple , in other words, thanks for building this website and helping us.

[jatadumus]

uwwgal wrote:Im not an Arequipian... but  I am going to be in Arequipa for a weekend in Dec  I just posted in the travel part of this, but by chance do any of you have any info on 1 day tours to Colca Canyon?

Thanks