Spyware is a "virus"
Now that many of the activist-hackers of the early 90’s have grown up and discovered it’s even cooler to have a 9,000 square foot home and a Ferrari than “changing the world” with CODED MESSAGES ever was, we’re in a position to understand the recent harmful innovations in MARKETING that now plague all our machines as the intelligent evolution of Virus Craft in a less (intentionally) destructive direction, towards good-old-fashion make-a-buck-in-any-way-you-can-get-away-with Entrepreneurialsm.
What do YOU think—should spyware distributors fall subject to the same (morally-supported) penalties as traditional Bug Makers?
The approriate law to address the issue here does NOT YET exist, which is among the reasons I wanted to go through this exercise.
We’re facing activities here that are (I think we all agree on this point) crossing lines beyond which the law SHOULD get involved.
What I have discovered by reading the posts in this thread is that many of you ARE distracted enough by the technical differences between Viruses and Spyware to be UNABLE to consider the comparison I intended—based on effect, not infection vector.
The reason I posed the question as I did is not because I don’t understand the difference between the different types of programs—I do, as well as any of you, I assure you.
The reason I framed the comparison as such is simply because in the case of “Viruses”, we (all of us, as prospective plaintiffs) can immediately benefit from the fact that the law has both precedent of action and scope of inclusion, across a broad range of cases. So that if and when we decide we’ve had enough of what Spyware distributors are doing (and getting away with in the guise of e-marketing), we can rely on the understanding of DENIAL OF SERVICE we have achieved via the pursuit and prosecution of Hackers and e-Virologists. But, to do that, we have to begin to separate the method from the effects…more
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