A company is maketing a product called Lover Spy, which allows the customer to send a “greeting” to an acquaintance. That greeting contains a hidden application that installs itself on the victim’s computer and reports back information on that person’s online activities. It’s intended to be a way for jealous lovers to keep tabs on their partner. It’s a remote version of the old “install a keystroke logger on your boyfriend” trick. It’s also probably illegal in the United States.
Finally I have a method to find out what the OSNews stories are before they are released! Now to send greeting cards to all of my favorite posters…
Oh well, SpyBot S&D will find and delete it anyway– Fuss over nothing.
Fortunately, this is just another area where Windows is copying Linux. Linux, of course, had spyware first:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lkl/
Umm…though normally I agree with you Bill, Windows does copy Linux, the key logger link is hardly evidence of that. Such things have existed on Windows for far longer that the project link that you sent.
We had such things installed by the admins at NASA on Windows 95 when it first came out. Your project says it was started April 21, 2003. Sorry…Windows has you beat by 8 years.
then a piece of software isn’t going to help. Beside,really jealous people just install transparent Squid proxies at the gateway and check the logs religiously every day.
On the other hand, I can see how (in a twisted way), this software could be used for good. Trick your partner into installing the program and then find out where they do all their window shopping on the web. That way, you’ll always buy her/him the perfect gift!
Sorry…Windows has you beat by 8 years.
I wrote one of these to intercept keyboard and get passwords when I was as school, that was on a BBC micro and about 20 years ago.
It was a bit of a waste of time in the end as there was a serious security flaw in the network OS that allowed anyone to open a file then set the file pointer anywhere on the server disk, including before the start. It was then that we discovered the passwords where held in clear text in a file at the beginning of the disk.
Goes the other way too … does Gnome and Kde look familiar. Also with Wine and the command shell, that is totally coping MS 😀 Ok I was joking for most of that, but I have seen people bring over features that they miss or found extremely handy to either OS. What I still don’t get is the whole close and maximize button being right next to each other, so easy to click the one you don’t want
It’s kinda obvious that this program uses a Windows vulnerability to install itself. Now what happens, if a person purchases this “program” to spy on his/her fiancee, the vulnerability gets fixed and the fiancee installs a patch that prevents this vulnerability from being exploited? Does the original purchaser of “Lover Spy” get his money back because his fiance’s system can no longer be infected?
Looks very shady to me…
…how is this article OS News?
Hear hear! I submit that, from now on, all stories posted on OS News be written in binary. That way, only the tweakiest of geeks will read OS News.
Look…Up in the sky…
It’s a bird…
It’s a plane…
It’s…a freakin’ LIFE!
Want one?
Anyone know if you can still specify tty to be snoopable so you can watch what a session is doing real-time? (you used to be able to back around Slackware 3.x
Doesn’t windows media player 9 doing this, sending MS info on what you play.
You’re a “glass is half full” kind of person, aren’t you?
How dumb are these people? Not only do they sell old technology elsewhere available for free (anyone remember backorofice?) But they make sure this illegal information passes through their servers first!
Would you recommend Back Orifice as the obviously superior Open Source solution? The one that is detectable by every virus scanner in existence worth its salt?
IMHO, if it is legal for MS to build spyware into their OS, then it should be legal for the rest of us to do similar as well.
What is this MS spyware you are talking about?
— “It’s kinda obvious that this program uses a Windows vulnerability to install itself.” —
Not at all. All thats needed is for the target to agree to download the “greeting” from their lover, which is actually executable. Requires no exploits, only an unexpecting lover.
So in only a few centuries humanity has advanced from Romeo and Juliet to 24/7 surveillance to test the integrity of our “partners”.
And they say romance is dead :>.