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The article is just wrong ! It's not unwanted software or a malware it's something users decides to install or not knowning what that entails: ad replacement in

by duked 14y ago

The article is just wrong ! It's not unwanted software or a malware it's something users decides to install or not knowning what that entails: ad replacement in exchange of music. Now you may like or dislike this approach but it's not a malware !

jbigelow76 14y ago
It's malware, pure and simple. Website operators can be victims of malware just like end users can be victims.
- comex 14y ago
  Is Adblock Plus also malware, then? What about Greasemonkey? The uncomfortable truth is that website operators do not have the right to control what sort of software users use to view their websites.
  - jbigelow76 14y ago
    I'm not interested in arguing about what the end user does concerning ad blocking. Everybody falls into one camp or another and I've never seen anybody change sides. I'm talking about malware and it's effects from the perspective of the website owner. Let's take some hypothetical numbers to make it easy. Operator X has a website that displays 1000 ad impressions in a month, for those 1000 impressions he receives 100 dollars. Now megawhatever diverts 15% of those impressions, net result is the Operator X still serves 1000 ad impressions but only earns 85 dollars for the month. 15 dollars has been stolen from him. The aggregate value of the delivery of those ads is what matters, not who saw the ads. So it doesn't matter if it's 100 people, none of whom have Adblock or 200 people, 50% of whom have AdBlock. This is strictly from the perspective of the website owner. If you lose 15% revenue from one month to the next while your audience stays constant then you are definitely going to view megawhatever as malware. Edit: for further clarification, I wouldn't view somebody who did not use adblock in month 1 and switching it on in month 2 as stealing from the website owner because the revenue is not being diverted. The audience, in the context of the ads, has simply decreased from one month to the next.
    - comex 14y ago
      Well, yes, but the terms "malware" and "stolen" imply that something was done improperly (or illegally), that the website owner is being deprived something of something he has the right to. A user has the right to only run the programs of his choice on his computer (and have them do what he expects), so if a program installs itself and steals his credit card data, his right is being violated. Do website owners have a similar right to control how their website is formatted? I think that they don't, so while the owners in question can consider it whatever they want, it is objectively not malware.
    - lowboy 14y ago
      Your definition of the word "malware" goes against the common definition. IMO, most people would consider malware something that is installed without the user's intent. Just because a piece of software negatively impacts website owners doesn't make it malware. Website owners would probably consider AdBlock malware, but almost 25 million users across Firefox and Chrome would disagree with that.
    - ben0x539 14y ago
      So would you suggest that blocking ads completely is less objectionable than blocking 15% of ads for the sake of the argument?
- duked 14y ago
  Then according to you if you install a software that is ads supported it's a malware too... You may want to rethink your definition or we'll need to pull out all the free section of the android/ios store.
  - jbigelow76 14y ago
    Huh? Your doesn't make any sense. The fact that something is ad supported is not what makes something malware, it's the hijacking of the content provider's revenue stream and replacing it with your own that makes something malware.
    - lowboy 14y ago
      That is a poor definition of malware.
      - jbigelow76 14y ago
        Just because something bad doesn't happen to the end user does not make something not malware. Would you say that bot-net software for launching DDOS attacks, installed willingly as part of X music service's software, is not malware? After all the user that installed it willingly is only making a few extra HTTP calls every once in a while, so they aren't suffering any negative affects. The author may have even obfuscated the secondary (primary?) use in some 2000 word term of service document that the user agreed to.
        lowboy 14y ago
        Let's consider both the DDOS botnet (most would consider "bad") and a program that contributes CPU cycles to Folding@Home (most would consider "good"). If it was buried in the TOU and we don't have a reasonable expectation that the user was aware of it, then it's malware, in both cases, plain and simple. What's absent from this is the intended target because it doesn't matter - a program was duplicitous and installed programs that the user wasn't aware of.
- kevinpet 14y ago
  Downvoted for most blatant use of "malware" to mean "stuff someone doesn't like" as opposed to software that runs without the computer owner's permission or does things other than it claims.
  - jbigelow76 14y ago
    Would that mean that a user that installs software that you would normally consider malware would not be able to claim it as such if they blew past the TOS or didn't uderstand the legalese wall of text they had click OK at the bottom of to make it go away? Or would you consider the user lazy and/or dumb and got what they deserved, but you still find the software to conform to your perception as malware? If they agreed to it, then either it's not malware or malware is a subjective term. This debate seems to rest on the perception of the "perfectly informed user" but that is a very small percentage of internet users and most assuredly not who Dotcom would see as his most profitable users. EDIT: kevinpet, below I asked lowboy and I'd be interested in your take as well. Would a user that willingly and knowingly installed software that participated as part of a DDOS bot net in exchange for some functionality have software on their computer that you would consider malware? Is it malware only if something bad happens to the end user?
    - lowboy 14y ago
      What about ad-supported installs that have a screen in the installation process with "Would you like to install ______" with a checkbox? Although I disagree with that practice, I wouldn't consider that malware because it does inform the user of the installation and gives them a way to opt out.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      Security scanners like nmap or Nessus were never considered malware, even if they can be used to exploit other servers. I don't see why would a DOSer, much less something like Megabox (which doesn't attack anything in any way) be considered malware.
      - jbigelow76 14y ago
- lowboy 14y ago
  The only way website operators can be victims of malware is if their site gets a script injected into it. Otherwise they're not a "victim" as much as someone who is negatively affected by a piece of software that a user runs on their computer, whether or not that piece of software is malware or not. In any case this is moot, because if this is a voluntarily installed piece of software with the user's full intention and knowledge, it's not malware no matter how negatively it affects website owners.
eli 14y ago
You're probably right, but I'm not sure a debate over semantics is helpful. It certainly uses the same techniques as some genuine malware and (IMHO) most people would not consider it a fair and legitimate way to make money.
- lowboy 14y ago
  Shouldn't it be up to the user to decide what she wants to run on her own browser? If I want to block all ads, I should be able to do that. If I want to replace those ads with kittens, I should be able to do that. If I want to replace those ads with other ads, I should be able to do that because it's my browser. edit Also, it's useful to talk about semantics here because people are conflating malware with "software that web owners might disagree with".

by duked 14y ago

jbigelow76 14y ago

It's malware, pure and simple. Website operators can be victims of malware just like end users can be victims.

comex 14y ago
Is Adblock Plus also malware, then? What about Greasemonkey? The uncomfortable truth is that website operators do not have the right to control what sort of software users use to view their websites.
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  I'm not interested in arguing about what the end user does concerning ad blocking. Everybody falls into one camp or another and I've never seen anybody change sides. I'm talking about malware and it's effects from the perspective of the website owner. Let's take some hypothetical numbers to make it easy. Operator X has a website that displays 1000 ad impressions in a month, for those 1000 impressions he receives 100 dollars. Now megawhatever diverts 15% of those impressions, net result is the Operator X still serves 1000 ad impressions but only earns 85 dollars for the month. 15 dollars has been stolen from him. The aggregate value of the delivery of those ads is what matters, not who saw the ads. So it doesn't matter if it's 100 people, none of whom have Adblock or 200 people, 50% of whom have AdBlock. This is strictly from the perspective of the website owner. If you lose 15% revenue from one month to the next while your audience stays constant then you are definitely going to view megawhatever as malware. Edit: for further clarification, I wouldn't view somebody who did not use adblock in month 1 and switching it on in month 2 as stealing from the website owner because the revenue is not being diverted. The audience, in the context of the ads, has simply decreased from one month to the next.
  - comex 14y ago
    Well, yes, but the terms "malware" and "stolen" imply that something was done improperly (or illegally), that the website owner is being deprived something of something he has the right to. A user has the right to only run the programs of his choice on his computer (and have them do what he expects), so if a program installs itself and steals his credit card data, his right is being violated. Do website owners have a similar right to control how their website is formatted? I think that they don't, so while the owners in question can consider it whatever they want, it is objectively not malware.
  - lowboy 14y ago
    Your definition of the word "malware" goes against the common definition. IMO, most people would consider malware something that is installed without the user's intent. Just because a piece of software negatively impacts website owners doesn't make it malware. Website owners would probably consider AdBlock malware, but almost 25 million users across Firefox and Chrome would disagree with that.
  - ben0x539 14y ago
    So would you suggest that blocking ads completely is less objectionable than blocking 15% of ads for the sake of the argument?
duked 14y ago
Then according to you if you install a software that is ads supported it's a malware too... You may want to rethink your definition or we'll need to pull out all the free section of the android/ios store.
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  Huh? Your doesn't make any sense. The fact that something is ad supported is not what makes something malware, it's the hijacking of the content provider's revenue stream and replacing it with your own that makes something malware.
  - lowboy 14y ago
    That is a poor definition of malware.
    - jbigelow76 14y ago
      Just because something bad doesn't happen to the end user does not make something not malware. Would you say that bot-net software for launching DDOS attacks, installed willingly as part of X music service's software, is not malware? After all the user that installed it willingly is only making a few extra HTTP calls every once in a while, so they aren't suffering any negative affects. The author may have even obfuscated the secondary (primary?) use in some 2000 word term of service document that the user agreed to.
      - lowboy 14y ago
        Let's consider both the DDOS botnet (most would consider "bad") and a program that contributes CPU cycles to Folding@Home (most would consider "good"). If it was buried in the TOU and we don't have a reasonable expectation that the user was aware of it, then it's malware, in both cases, plain and simple. What's absent from this is the intended target because it doesn't matter - a program was duplicitous and installed programs that the user wasn't aware of.
kevinpet 14y ago
Downvoted for most blatant use of "malware" to mean "stuff someone doesn't like" as opposed to software that runs without the computer owner's permission or does things other than it claims.
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  Would that mean that a user that installs software that you would normally consider malware would not be able to claim it as such if they blew past the TOS or didn't uderstand the legalese wall of text they had click OK at the bottom of to make it go away? Or would you consider the user lazy and/or dumb and got what they deserved, but you still find the software to conform to your perception as malware? If they agreed to it, then either it's not malware or malware is a subjective term. This debate seems to rest on the perception of the "perfectly informed user" but that is a very small percentage of internet users and most assuredly not who Dotcom would see as his most profitable users. EDIT: kevinpet, below I asked lowboy and I'd be interested in your take as well. Would a user that willingly and knowingly installed software that participated as part of a DDOS bot net in exchange for some functionality have software on their computer that you would consider malware? Is it malware only if something bad happens to the end user?
  - lowboy 14y ago
    What about ad-supported installs that have a screen in the installation process with "Would you like to install ______" with a checkbox? Although I disagree with that practice, I wouldn't consider that malware because it does inform the user of the installation and gives them a way to opt out.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Security scanners like nmap or Nessus were never considered malware, even if they can be used to exploit other servers. I don't see why would a DOSer, much less something like Megabox (which doesn't attack anything in any way) be considered malware.
    - jbigelow76 14y ago
lowboy 14y ago
The only way website operators can be victims of malware is if their site gets a script injected into it. Otherwise they're not a "victim" as much as someone who is negatively affected by a piece of software that a user runs on their computer, whether or not that piece of software is malware or not. In any case this is moot, because if this is a voluntarily installed piece of software with the user's full intention and knowledge, it's not malware no matter how negatively it affects website owners.

eli 14y ago

You're probably right, but I'm not sure a debate over semantics is helpful. It certainly uses the same techniques as some genuine malware and (IMHO) most people would not consider it a fair and legitimate way to make money.

lowboy 14y ago
Shouldn't it be up to the user to decide what she wants to run on her own browser? If I want to block all ads, I should be able to do that. If I want to replace those ads with kittens, I should be able to do that. If I want to replace those ads with other ads, I should be able to do that because it's my browser. edit Also, it's useful to talk about semantics here because people are conflating malware with "software that web owners might disagree with".