The Plot To Hijack Your Hard Drive

An anonymous reader writes Business Week Online examines the business practices of spammers and pop-up advertisers, using much-maligned Direct Revenue as an example case. The article discusses the history of the company, their rocky road through good and bad times, and what they're willing to to get your eyes on their ads." From the article: "Among Direct Revenue's alumni, pride over technical cunning mingles with regret for exasperating so many computer users. After waffling on the issue during a long interview, one former Dark Arts wizard sighs and sums up his version of the company credo with an elegiac observation by abolitionist Frederick Douglass: 'Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.'"

Here's how to stop it...

[gasmonso]

Complain to the companies that advertise with these methods. If you see an ad for Delta airlines, write them a letter complaining. Bitching to the advertising company is useless because they don't care... they're getting paid from someone else. Now the companies advertising through them are getting paid from you... and they will listen eventually.

Also, use a router, firewall software, Antivirus, and Firefox. Haven't any issues ever.

http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

Who buys this stuff?

[ZachPruckowski]

I mean, I think the real problem is that people will buy stuff from ads that randomly pop-up on their computer. And worse, those ads are the most effective kind?? I mean, if we could get people to wise up and not purchase sketchy stuff from spam or adware, then evil companies would stop making it.

That's No Excuse

[Squiffy]

'Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.'

That doesn't make it okay to be the one imposing the injustice.

Re:In the end..

[Anonymous Coward]

Google ads are the only ads that I don't make a habit of writing regexps to eliminate. It's not all that hard to excise them, but they're unobtrusive enough that I don't mind their presence and relevant enough that I sometimes care about them.

Google ads hold the record

[Sycraft-fu]

As only ads I've ever bought anything from. The reason is they are the only ads that are around when I'm thinking of something. We needed an Optura Xi camera for work. So I punched in "Optura Xi". Lo and behold there's a link to B&H on the right hand side offering it. Clicking it took me not to their front page, but to the camera itself. 5 minutes later it was a done deal.

I'm not going to buy from random popup ads, they are never selling what I want when I want it. It's not just that Google ads are onobtrusive, they are relivant. They are what I searched for and they generally take me right to the product page.

Education!

[Kouroth]

Education is going to be the most effective way to put a stop to spam and other addware. There must be a massive campaign to teach people what spam is and how to stop it. Videos that come up when you first load a new computer should be included to explain spam and how to prevent it. Work places need to spend time explaining to employees what to avoid. Schools of all grades need to teach people about safe internet use. If the campaign was big enough it'd help a great deal, maybe even stop it all together. The problem is that people ARE clicking adds, they ARE buying junk from spam adds! If they no longer clicked adds, deleted all spam with out looking at it, I'd bet it wouldn't pay any more. Laws won't do it, attacks against spammers doesn't work. Our best way to fight it is to stop people from making it profitable. Once the money goes the adds will go too.

Re:Windows assumptions rampant

[Anonymous Coward]

"I love how these articles talk about "your computer" as if everybody in the world is running Windows."

>95% is close enough to "everybody" for most intents and purposes.

Re:Here's how to stop it...

[andrewman327]

Believe it or not, companies really do read their snail mail. I have gotten more for my $0.39 than I ever could have gotten through e-mail or even telephone calls. If you feel passionately about this, e-mail me [mailto]. I am interested in starting a group to pressure people to stop advirtising this way.

Here's how to REALLY stop it...

[emil]

Don't browse the internet as Administrator on Windows, ever. Don't even browse as a "power user" - create a restricted user (no install or registry change privileges).

If you are going to browse while logged in as Administrator, right-click on your browser, select "Run as" and run it as a less-privileged user.

In general, always run as a restricted user, and use "Run as" to elevate privilege of software that requires it (cd burning, etc.). Leave Administrator alone.

If you have no firewall, examine the services that you have running (right-click My Computer, manage, services). Look up every running service (on google or whatnot) and make a decision to shut it down or leave it operating.

Also, ensure that your SYSTEMROOT resides on an NTFS filesystem. If it's on FAT, none of the above will help you.

Firefox helps, but this works better.

Re:Here's how to stop it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just fyi: Direct Revenue's 'Aurora' adware worked with Firefox, not just IE.