Scamware

CNet is reporting that there is a crackdown on so called "scamware", software that tells you that something is wrong with your computer and thus you need to buy some software which they conveniently will sell to you. I think my wife ran into some of that today. She was looking for info on how to fix the rear wiper of our van (pop the cover and tighten the 10mm nut, if you were wondering). One of the sites popped up another that said she had some Win32 virus and she needed to install their anti-virus software. Well, since she was on an Ubuntu machine there was exactly 0% chance that she really had the virus, so something was definitely awry. No clue if that particular software is from the vendors that Washington state is targeting, but it sure was interesting to run across the story on the same day.

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