StarDestroyer.Net BBS

ArseTech wrote: In its race to catch up with Google, Microsoft is reportedly looking at buying a company with a controversial and checkered history: Claria. According to the New York Times, there is a US$500 million offer on the table, despite a large amount of internal debate at Redmond about the wisdom of picking up the company formerly known as Gator.

Gator is an abomination of a program, it is for all intents and purposes a trojan that eats away at your system resouses and sends your personal information to its owners. Were we in a saner country I've close them down, charge the owners with idenity theft and toss them in for ten to twenty years in ram them in the ass prison.
NY Times, subscribers only

Subscribers...and BugMeNot users only

This doesn't bode well at all..

I have a bad feeling about this.

They could even manage to sell it to clients.
"Do you have too much free time? You don't know what to do this evening? For only 15$ we will mess with your computer and you will be able to have fun for hours while trying to fix it"

So is Gator now going to come pre-installed with Longhorn?

You know it will. Plus, if you remove it, it will cause your computer to explode.

And, of course, people will claim that the fact that Linux lacks the computer-exploding feature is yet further proof that it's not ready for the desktop.

Maybe they will work on the resource issues and get a proper updating system in it (Gator updated via Microsoft Updates )

Microsoft is normally very good with their privacy policies and their security and code stability has only improved since the Win9x days.


But yes, this is fucking evil.

Drooling Iguana wrote:And, of course, people will claim that the fact that Linux lacks the computer-exploding feature is yet further proof that it's not ready for the desktop.

/linux_user *cackles

ggs wrote:Maybe they will work on the resource issues and get a proper updating system in it (Gator updated via Microsoft Updates )

Microsoft is normally very good with their privacy policies and their security and code stability has only improved since the Win9x days.


But yes, this is fucking evil.

Well, currently I have xp and windows explorer keeps trying to access 207.46.248.249 (which resolves to sa.windows.com) but I have my firewall blocking it. If they set it up so that the spying uses the windows update conection I will not be able to block it without disabling windows update.

In saying that, I expect gaming under linux to have taken off before I find games that need a version of windows later than xp (I only switched to xp from 98 this year)

bilateralrope wrote:
Well, currently I have xp and windows explorer keeps trying to access 207.46.248.249 (which resolves to sa.windows.com) but I have my firewall blocking it. If they set it up so that the spying uses the windows update conection I will not be able to block it without disabling windows update.

Thats Windows updating the local search stuff, it only gets doesnt send any personal info at all.

Also outbound blocking software firewalls give a sense of false security. Any application running as Administrator can nuke them, and take control of your net connection.

ggs wrote:

bilateralrope wrote:
Well, currently I have xp and windows explorer keeps trying to access 207.46.248.249 (which resolves to sa.windows.com) but I have my firewall blocking it. If they set it up so that the spying uses the windows update conection I will not be able to block it without disabling windows update.

Thats Windows updating the local search stuff, it only gets doesnt send any personal info at all.

Also outbound blocking software firewalls give a sense of false security. Any application running as Administrator can nuke them, and take control of your net connection.

What exactly do you mean by 'updading the locak search stuff' ?

I use my linux box for any data I need to keep private.