jansson_mark
Markus Jansson
Premium
join:2001-08-05
Finland
2 edits |  What was the first true spyware?
Just wondering. What is the first spyware around and when was it published? When did you first heard about spyware? About what spyware? Why? What did you do about it?
(Im just damm curious about these things  )
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My computer security & privacy related homepage »www.markusjansson.net
Use HushTools or GnuPG/PGP to encrypt any email before sending it to me to protect our privacy. |
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FixItPlz
@rr.com | Not sure it was the first, but the first I remember is Bonzai Buddy...bleh |
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dannyboy 950
Premium
join:2002-12-30
Port Arthur, TX | reply to jansson_mark
Yea and then around that same time those web bug things came out and that rocket app also was in that general time frame. |
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MagMan
Life is simpler when you tell the truth.
Premium
join:2003-10-01
Westlake, OH
 ·AT&T Midwest
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to FixItPlz
said by FixItPlz :
Not sure it was the first, but the first I remember is Bonzai Buddy...bleh
You got that right what a nasty. 
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"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is." |
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novaflare
The Dragon Was Here
Premium
join:2002-01-24
Barberton, OH
| reply to jansson_mark
Id say the old wildtangent before they went legit(ish). Or maybe jetcar wich is used in many download acelarators now like flashget for example. You could also consider any of the ad based free dialup isps of years past to be spyware as they collected datasome of the data they gathered was infact personally identifiable if you used real name etc for the isp. |
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hpguru
Curb Your Dogma
Premium
join:2002-04-12
1 edit | reply to jansson_mark
I think it was a component that came bundled with Radiate/Aureate "freeware" such as Gozilla.
Edit: Comet Cursors was another early one. |
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jbob
Reach Out and Touch Someone
Premium
join:2004-04-26
Little Rock, AR
 ·Comcast
·AT&T Southwest
1 edit | reply to jansson_mark
Wikipedia had a good read on Spyware.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware
As hpguru mentioned I seem to remember Comet Cursor as one of the earlier ones as well as Hot Bar maybe! I was kinda thinking that Tracking Cookies(although not seen as bad today) were some of the earlier forms of spyware that began the anti-spyware industry.
Here's an article from early 2001.
»www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xm···ool.html
Steve Gibson wrote this tool for the FBI and called it Patchwork.exe. |
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hpguru
Curb Your Dogma
Premium
join:2002-04-12
| That jogged my memory. Gator and Alexa were also among the first.
--
Where's Jesus?
Dear Jesus! |
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dr77
@qnet.com | reply to jansson_mark
Keyloggers, in the early 90's. |
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indexdat
@rr.com
| This sounds like spyware to me
Internet privacy groups contend that the use of index.dat files in the Windows operating system is an invasion of privacy. One of their main complaints is that the index.dat files cannot be deleted or erased easily, because they are always open when Windows (usually the explorer.exe process) is running. Open or "locked" files cannot be deleted in any way when the process using them is running. Also, when this file grows larger than 80MB in size degraded web performance will occur.
Another contention is that the operating system gives a false sense of security. Even after the user has cleared the internet cache folder, temporary internet files folder, and history folder, the index.dat files on Windows continue to store all visited web addresses and cookies and some temporary files. Some people state that this will eventually cause the index.dat files to grow very large, while the average user remains unaware of what is going on. |
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storm64007
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Freeport, NY | reply to FixItPlz
said by FixItPlz :
Not sure it was the first, but the first I remember is Bonzai Buddy...bleh
lol..that insane purple monkey. |
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whizkid3
Premium,MVM
join:2002-02-21
Queens, NY
·Earthlink Cable Mo..
1 edit | reply to jansson_mark
I helped write a program back in 1979, called Spy. It was a systems-level program written in macro-assembler for the Digital Equipment Corp. 'VAX'; a mainframe time-sharing system. It was a communications program for the users to chat, see what others are doing, etc. Secretly, it was sending priveledged users information, such as passwords, etc.
We copied some of the spyware ideas from other programs that were written before mine. I seriously doubt that it was close to being the first. So we're talking 1970s here. |
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Doctor Four
My other vehicle is a TARDIS
Premium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
1 edit | reply to jansson_mark
Radiate/Aureate, Conducent/Timesink, Gator, and Comet
Cursor were some the earliest forms of advertising spyware.
I first discovered GRC in early 2000 after I started
getting invalid page faults in IE. I had gotten hit by
Aureate, which had been bundled with a program called Net
Vampire. The latter I removed when it interfered with my
printer drivers, but the adware remained.
Early versions of Aureate were unstable - which is what
caused the invalid page faults in IE. Only OptOut existed
then, and I used it to remove the adware. But OptOut was
abandoned because Ad Aware came along. I also got hit by
Conducent/Timesink, which Ad Aware found and removed.
It had come bundled with PkZip.
I never encountered Bonzi Buddy or Gator on my home PC,
but at work it was a different story. There were two PCs
in the breakroom that weren't part of the rest of the
network that were completely open (running as Admin !) -
these regularly got crap on them. I had a floppy disk
with Ad Aware on it I would bring with me on breaks, and
often had to remove stuff from them. Gator, Comet Cursor
and Bonzi Buddy were the most common. Bonzi Buddy was one
tough nut to remove completely.
--
"The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots." - Doctor Who (from Destiny Of The Daleks) |
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RobertLudlum
join:2005-01-20
656456 | From what I read, spyware was used to refer to Windows, Jokingly?? |
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