Re: Is this what it looks like?
From: ßill (whickok@rochester.rr.com)Date: 12/23/01
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From: ßill <whickok@rochester.rr.com> Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 14:31:57 GMT
OnSun, 23 Dec 2001 16:11:10 +0200,I thought I heard Lance Delacroix
<lance_delacroix@fastmail.fm> belch the following:
>I hope somebody out there who knows more than I do can help me
>evaluate this situation.
>
>I recently did a software search for educational games and such for my
>three-year-old child. One of the sites that turned up was
>www.wyvern.com, which has a lot of free screen-savers and other stuff,
>and some toys at http://www.wyvern.com/freegames.htm#123LEARN.
>
>All of their stuff is free, ostensibly subsidized by Gator, a company
>that provides a free piece of software along with every Wyvern
>download: "As part of the install, we install a small program that
>allows Gator to introduce their software to our users." (from
>http://www.wyvern.com/freegames.htm#FreeGames)
>
>Reading on, Wyvern says that Gator's software "is a cool piece of
>software that helps you remember passwords, and fill out forms online.
>It is free to use, has no negative side effects, and only does what
>you tell it. " (also from the preceding URL).
>
>Now, I remembered the name Gator from a post in
>comp.security.firewalls (from mtubi@python.net Wed Dec 19 06:29:22
>2001) in which Gator was listed as one of a number of "known parasite
>services". Very interesting.
>
>Somewhere in the mess of blurbs I found something (I can't find it
>again now) that said that Gator's program, called "Trickle", would be
>downloaded unobtrusively, a tiny bit at a time, so as to avoid
>intefering with my surfing pleasure.
>
>I downloaded the kiddy software and installed it. Then I checked the
>new directory and found a file called called "Trickle_blahblahblah".
>Soon afterwards, I got an alert from my Tiny Personal Firewall telling
>me that Trickle was trying to connect outward. "No need for that," I
>thought, and I denied it and then deleted it from the directory where
>it had lodged. I installed a second kiddy game and it put a second
>copy of Trickle onto my computer, which I also deleted.
>
>Now I'm no genius, but it looks to me like this "cool" software was
>something whose job it was to send information about my computer to
>Gator. Whaddaya think? Am I right? You can check it out for
>yourself through the above URLs. If I'm correct about this, the full
>text on http://www.wyvern.com/freegames.htm#FreeGames will make some
>pretty hilarious reading.
>
>Thanks.
My kids came across that one again yesterday. That "Trickle" software
runs concurrently with a "silent setup"applet. It is indeed sending
or trying to send info back home.
ß
Atheism: A non-prophet organization.
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