InBoxCop Inc. tries to take "Spybot" trade name

Update

This may possibly be resolved now. The owner of InBoxCop Inc has stated on our message board that there will be no legal threats made to PepiMK Software. I have emailed them to confirm this.

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InBoxCop Inc., maker of antispam program InboxCop, has registered the domain spybot.com and filed for a trademark on the word "Spybot". InBoxCop Inc. is also threatening PepiMK Software, maker of Spybot Search and Destroy, with legal action for use of the name "Spybot".

In response, PepiMK's Patrick Kolla is calling for a boycott of InBoxCop Inc. and presumably will fight any attempt to hijack the trade name of his product.

Ironically, InBoxCop Inc. tries to entice visitors to register for a free trial of their antispam program by promising to email download links to Spybot S&D, Grisoft's AVG antivirus, and other free programs. Spybot S&D is a free program that does not require any sort of registration, and is available directly from the developer's web site, http://security.kolla.de/.

SpywareInfo also calls for a boycott of InBoxCop Inc., InboxCop, inboxcop.com, and spybot.com, and also asks all of our readers to please donate a few bucks to PepiMK to help with legal costs. One buck, ten bucks, fifty, whatever you can spare would certainly be appreciated. Every little bit helps and we hope that every reader can make at least a small donation. It is time for us to pay back Spybot for all its free service to the internet community.

We also ask that other web sites and companies join a public boycott of InBoxCop Inc., InboxCop, inboxcop.com, and spybot.com, and to publish this on their web sites and on message boards around the world.

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Links:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/inboxcop/ Permanent location of this article
http://security.kolla.de/ Spybot's Home Page
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=donations%40spybot.info Donate to Spybot
http://www.spywareinfo.net/rd/19 Post a comment on this story

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Program: Pop-Up Stopper Companion
Author: Panicware
Platform: Internet Explorer 5.x - 6.x and Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT, 2000 and XP
License: $39.95 $29.96 [25% off for SpywareInfo visitors until July 1, 2003]

Panicware's top of the line product features the most advanced ad blocking, cleaning and surfing enhancement technology. Say goodbye to those pesky X10 and Casino ads! Protect your family and your privacy by stopping Internet tracking.

Web Evidence Eliminator

• Clean url-history, browser history, cookies, cache and more!
• Remove all traces of your recent surfing activity!
• Keep cookies from user selected sites for email logins, etc.
• Eliminate tracking cookies and web-bugs
• All done automatically, no user intervention required!

Protect your Bookmarks and Favorites

With Hot Links Pop-Up Stopper Companion allows you to keep a list of your "Hot Links" for quick access at any time! No need to search through Favorites or Browser History to find your favorite sites! Other sites can't add their links to OUR Hot Links as they do to your Internet Explorer Favorites!

Read on for more information

Every week, SpywareInfo arranges a discount on the programs best suited to keep your private life private. This arrangement lets us pay the bills to keep SpywareInfo running without having to sell ads to the likes of DoubleClick and X-10.

We do need your help, as the discount is for your benefit. What commercial privacy software would you like to see featured here at a discount? Drop us a note and let us know.

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Links:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/panicware/ Panicware Pop-Up Stopper Companion information page
http://www.spywareinfo.com/email2.php Suggest a product

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Since June 10, someone has been distributing a browser hijack that spawns an offscreen pop up window which opens a page at datanotary.com.

The hijack is accomplished by inserting javascript into a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file, then hijacking Internet Explorer's accessibility options to force it to use that style sheet. When activated, the javascript makes use of an obscure and proprietary Microsoft CSS extension to create the pop up window.

The pop up windows are hidden, since the javascript opens them at a position 5,000 pixels from the top and 5,000 pixels from the right of the screen (most monitors display only 768 pixels from top to bottom). It is unclear whether the window was intentionally placed offscreen, or if the malware author simply made a typo.

The extension is called and the pop up windows created when the victim begins to type into a form on a web page. This causes the computer to slow down quite visibly as the window is being created offscreen. This is, in fact, how the hijack was discovered. Hundreds of people were posting questions on message boards around the world asking for help with a mysterious slow down while typing.

A user at the SWI support forums noticed that his browser was set to use a custom stylesheet. After resetting that option to not use the style sheet, his slow typing problem disappeared.

Examination of the file found a javascript expression where CSS should have been. Converting the expression into Human-readable text revealed a script that opens a hidden pop up window to datanotary.com

Removal Instructions

1. Click Tools
2. Click Internet Options
3. Click Accessibility
4. Uncheck "Format documents using my style sheet"
   See if this is checked, make sure before you uncheck to look at the path of the *.css file. It was my.css in one case, system.css in another.
5. Click Ok twice
6. Now go to the c:\Windows directory where the file is located and delete that *.css.
7. Reboot

This information is located at http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/datanotary/

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Credits:

http://www.doxdesk.com/ Doxdesk
http://www.spywareinfo.com/forums/ Mosaic1, SWI forums expert member

June 24, 2003

These programs, regardless of whether they are freeware or shareware, are the finest programs in their categories. They are programs that I use. Programs will be only presented to you if they meet the criterion of excellence AND they agree to give the Spywareinfo readers a discounted price. These programmers / companies do good work. I am hoping that you support them, as they are recognizing Spywareinfo readers with a special, time limited discount.

Tracks Eraser Pro

With Tracks Eraser's Secure Erasing feature, you can erase the files completely so that they can not be recovered by others.

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Yankee Clipper

The most useful program on my computer. Yankee Clipper automatically stores everything that is copied to the Windows clipboard and allows you to access it later.

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Link:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/ed/2003/06/24.php Editor's Choice Page

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In an unfortunate display of very irresponsible behavior, several antivirus companies have labeled a new virus with the word "Spybot". The "Spybot Worm" is distributed over peer-to-peer networks disguised as a product key generator (keygen) and attempts to spread itself to other users on the same network. This worm logs keystrokes on an infected system.

This virus has absolutely no connection with Spybot S&D. Why these commercial software companies have chosen the name of a free competing program as a label for this new virus is unknown, but unfortunately it is causing some confusion. Spybot S&D's developer has an announcement about these detections on his web site.

In the past, antivirus vendors have typically considered spyware, browser hijackers, and other malware acceptable if they included a click-through agreement, regardless of how vaguely the agreement is worded and no matter how malicious the software is. Just last year, antivirus vendors left their users helpless against the friendgreeting email worm because it included a click-through agreement. Antispyware programs such as Spybot and Ad-aware had to step in to help protect the public.

I believe it is unethical and inappropriate for these antivirus companies to label one of their targets with the name of a program that is now a direct competitor. I am certain these companies would not be amused to discover Spybot targeting "McAfee Keylogger" or "Kaspersky Spyware". I call on these antivirus companies to cease this unethical behavior and to change their name for this virus before Spybot starts doing exactly that.

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Links:

http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=news/news20030524 Spybot News Release
http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=100282 McAfee: W32/Spybot.worm.gen
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/dyn/34750.html Symantec: W32.Spybot.Worm
http://www.pandasoftware.com/virus_info/encyclopedia/overview.aspx?idvirus=39629 Panda Software: W32/Spybot

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I personally find it offensive that brutal, barbaric governments like this one still exist. Possessing an unregistered typewriter, illegal. More than three people in a group on the sidewalk, illegal. Practicing an unapproved religion, illegal. Telling the world that your government is trying to cover up a fatal pneumonic plague, illegal.

Beijing goes high-tech to block SARS messages

16.06.2003
By HENRY HOENIG in Beijing

By early February the people of Guangdong province had begun to panic, pouring into stores and clearing out supplies of Western antibiotics, vinegar and Chinese herbal tea, all of which were rumoured to fend off a mysterious virus the world would come to know as Sars.

But the virus had not yet been given a name. In fact, its existence had not even been acknowledged by the Chinese Government or by the media.

Yet by February 10 news of a "fatal flu in Guangdong" had reached 120 million people through text messaging, say some reports, and an untold extra number through email and internet chatrooms.

Chinese authorities had little choice but to acknowledge the outbreak and try to restore calm.

The Government had been taught a painful lesson about controlling the news in a burgeoning high-tech society.

That message would be repeated under similar circumstances two months later, when it was forced to admit it had been covering up the number of Sars cases in Beijing. In return, it has since sent a few painful messages of its own.

By mid-February, officials began complaining about the use of text messaging to spread "rumours", deeming them subversive activity and a threat to stability. Then they began arresting people.

By the end of May, 117 people in 17 provinces had been arrested and charged with disturbing social order by spreading Sars-related rumours, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The official People's Daily said on June 8 that 108 Falungong followers in Hebei province had been arrested for spreading rumours that hindered the Government's bid to control Sars, but did not state how those rumours were spread.

Read the rest of this article at The New Zealand Herald

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Link:

http://www.spywareinfo.net/rd/20 Story at The New Zealand Herald

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Do you talk to friends and family using an instant messenger while you are at work? If so, you may want to start watching what you say...

New rule says financial firms must hold on to chat records for three years.

Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service
Thursday, June 19, 2003

U.S. securities regulators put a further onus on financial firms to keep records of their business this week, this time focusing on the increasingly popular form of communication known as instant messaging.

The National Association of Securities Dealers informed its roughly 5300 brokerage-firm members Wednesday that they must retain their IM records for at least three years. Under federal law, every securities firm doing business with the U.S. public must be a member of NASD.

Read the rest of this article at PC World

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Link:

http://www.spywareinfo.net/rd/21 Story at PCWorld.com

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On Tuesday, June 17, EFF sent a letter to the California State Assembly opposing legislation that endorses the use of biometrics for identification purposes. AB 25 would require state agencies to accept only foreign-government-issued identification cards that use biometrics (in this case, digitized thumb prints that meet National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards). EFF is concerned that reliance on biometric identifiers will dramatically raise the stakes for identity theft and raise serious privacy concerns while failing to provide substantive security benefits.

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Link:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/biometrics/letter-to-nunez.php EFF Letter

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SpywareInfo is proud to announce the opening of a brand new IRC chat room.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a system that allows people from all over the world to connect to chat servers and communicate with one another. For more information about IRC, please visit irchelp.org.

In April, SpywareInfo closed its chat room on the wyldryde IRC network due to disagreements with network management policies. By popular demand, the chat room is back, this time on a much friendlier network. This chat room is an official extension of spywareinfo.com and the SWI support forums, as well as our partner web site TomCoyote.org.

There are two ways to access this chat room: with a desktop IRC client, or with a web based java client that will run in your web browser. Full instructions for accessing the chat room are available at http://chat.spywareinfo.com/. See you there!

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Last week's poll asking your opinion of employers using spyware to monitor their employees is still running at our support forums. Here are the results to this point.

Question: Should employers use spyware, on company-owned computers?

• [32.08%] Yes, at the office and on company-owned computers taken home
• [18.87%] Yes, but only at the office, not at home
• [32.08%] It is acceptable only for gathering evidence of a crime or espionage
• [16.98%] No, it is never acceptable to spy on employees

What is your opinion?

http://www.spywareinfo.net/rd/13 Vote in the poll

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I'd like to thank all of the people who link to SpywareInfo. There are thousands of people who link to the site, the newsletter, various articles, and the forums, and the site wouldn't be such as success without them.

Google and other search engines decide where to rank your web site based partly upon how many other web sites link to you, and certainly you have helped my Google ranking (currently listed at #7 for the keyword "spyware"). The home page alone has five hundred links pointing to it from other web sites indexed by Google.

I used to link back to every site that site that I found in my referer logs. There are so many now that this simply is not possible anymore. However, you can search Google for sites linking to me. Go check some of them out.

Thank you very much everybody.

Mike Healan
Editor: Spywareinfo

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Link:

http://www.google.com/search?q=link:http://www.spywareinfo.com/&num=100 Google search for sites linking to SWI

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I need a favor from the 150 or so people who receive this email at an AT&T email address. Unsubscribe, and then resubscribe using your new comcast.net address. June 30, all AT&T broadband internet customers switch to Comcast services, and all AT&T email addresses will change along with them.

Please go ahead and click the link at the very bottom of this newsletter to unsubscribe your current address, then resubscribe at your new address. I do not want to start receiving a huge number of bounces from people at AT&T addresses that did not switch over in time, so just before the next issue goes out, all 150 att.net and attbi.com addresses will be removed from the database.

I'm not positive that att.net addresses are also switching over, so if I'm wrong about that, please tell me before I unsubscribe you needlessly.

You can resubscribe at http://www.spywareinfo.com/subscribe/. Please do not subscribe to an address that will send back a "please click here to prove you are not a spambot" challenge. I don't have time to click hundreds of those things a week, so I delete those immediately.

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Do you like SpywareInfo and this newsletter? Then please tell a few friends about it! We are trying to come up with ways to increase the number of visitors to the web site and the number of subscribers of this newsletter.

Recently I signed up for RecommendIt's service, also used by Scot Finnie and Fred Langa. When you use RecommendIt's service to send a link to a friend or family member, you can also choose to enter a contest with a grand prize of $10,000.

The privacy policy of the site looks solid and I did ask around if anyone had heard anything bad about it before I signed up for it. You can use their service to recommend SpywareInfo to someone you know at http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=881459

Of course, you don't *have* to use RecommendIt's site to send a friend a link to the site. Just sending an email will also do the trick.

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Links:

http://www.scotsnewsletter.com Scot Finnie's Newsletter
http://www.langa.com/newsletter.htm The Langalist