Marcus Cavanaugh

Spyware? In 2008?

I just heard a radio advertisement for another anti-spyware product. Just this morning even, I woke up to find my father doing his weekly routine of running a bunch of anti-spyware, antivirus, and cleaning software on the family’s Windows computers.

Why?

It’s 2008. Spyware should have been gone long ago. Technology is sufficiently advanced that we shouldn’t have to find many computer users running antivirus and anti-spyware software on their machines on a regular basis.

OS X and Unix have had a proper security model for a long time. But thanks to Windows, our society has come to the conclusion that it is normal for unwanted, potentially malicious software to magically appear on our computers; that the only remedy for such software is post-mortem, by treating the symptoms rather than the cause.

Market share? Nah. Windows could be a lot more secure and spyware-free even with a monopolistic market share. The problem isn’t Microsoft’s dominance, it’s that the Windows security model (at least until Vista) failed to account for proper access control.

So now, we’re stuck with a public that thinks it’s perfectly okay to have to install antivirus and anti-spyware software on their machines.

It’s as though we just accept that somehow, malicious software will inevitably appear on our machines. So let’s stick a sniper inside our computer’s entryway for when the robber enters the house — forget about putting a lock on the door instead so that we can decide who should be let in.

Thanks, Microsoft.

Posted 22 March 2008 in Tech

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