Drunken (but sound-ish) spyware theory

[Lt Major Burns]

Microsoft invented spyware.

hear me out.

they open up a hole in widows that lets everything in (the first time i put xp on the net without antivirus, sassar hit within 3 minutes and the computer wouldn't boot anymore.... fun.), then more and more people know about it, and accept it

even normal women know about spyware now. so lots of programs (adaware etc) come out to try and combat this worldwide, billion-computer problem. the programs do a sort-of good job.

micro$oft come in with their amazing program that kills it all dead (or actually just closes up the whole they created, is it so surprising that their program is the best? they wrote windows [badly]), which at first is free, then when people rely on it, start charging, therefore making mr Gates' bank account just that little bit bigger, because blatantly, he needs it.

yes it was drunken, but it does seem rather sound, no?

[ex2bot]

I don't think there's a neat conspiracy like that. However, I wouldn't be too surprised if MSoft tries to run the other Internet security companies out so people are dependent on MS security software. Scary thought.

Doug

[texanpenguin]

I think it would be truly roll-on-the-floor classic if the Microsoft security software they're purportedly producing opened a serious flaw in the OS :P.

[gerbick]

ok, I'll add to your conspiracy... but this one might make more sense.

Microsoft didn't invent spyware, but they're about to license out MS Windows licenses for spyware to all of these dubious companies out there. How?

Let me tell you how. Via Microsoft's acquisition of Giant, they now have a (currently in beta) spyware removal software program. They are at the crossroads a bit on whether or not they will charge for subscriptions to updates, what not. But imagine if they don't charge for updates, and they adopt the same methodology of "digitally signing" drivers so that they're MS Windows certified to spyware.

That's right, MS will not start to capitalize on the spyware income - it's higher than most people think, information is indeed worth a lot - that they currently don't have access to by charging a licensing fee, and suddently you have a new group of "software" that's digitally signed and trusted by Microsoft that is allowed to be installed onto your computer. The spyware people get massive distribution across almost all connected computers and the spyware manufacturers still get that revenue, but now Microsoft has a new stream of revenue.

Let that set in for a moment.

[Quicksilver]

Freeky. I believe there may be more of some sort of conspiracy than thought. This whole virus/spyware/adware thing is creating a whole industry in itself. There for more people accually work around windows being educated trained and specialised in these areas.

I'ts also all free advertising for MS, there is no such thing as bad advertising. Then people go to the shop to buy a computer and reassured by sales guys that this is somthing that computers just have, so we must learn to live with it. People just buy the computer knowing this all the way.

[Lt Major Burns]

and here we are with our anti-virus/adaware free macs.... hassle free peace of mind. i have a question though - is it still possible for mac to get virus/trojan/spyware? or do we just not get them but there is always a chance?

[Darkshadow]

There's a chance. Macs mainly don't get them because a) it's harder to write them for it (but not impossible), and b) there are less people that use Macs.

[gerbick]

or C... since MacOSX is BSD based, you have to have authentication in order to install damn near anything.

Not so in Windows.