From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Jul 13 16:48:50 2005
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From: "Gayn Winters" <gayn.winters@mail.bristolsystems.com>
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Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 09:48:39 -0700
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Subject: Spyware on FreeBSD?
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I was wondering if anyone had had any trouble with spyware on their
FreeBSD systems, or if we are too small a group of consumers for the
spyware vendors to attack?

On my Windows system, I had been using Microsoft's GIANT software, which
seems to have been corrupted (see today's article in eweek
http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=155700,00.asp) by bizarre
Microsoft policies on "approving" certain spyware companies - notably
GAIN.  I suppose this is another reason to push unix-like systems....,
but with their increasing popularity, I wonder when we'll be attacked by
more than pop-ups and spam...

How immune is a FreeBSD system from spyware?  For sure, we should all be
following the standard advice of NEVER surfing the web using the root
account!  Thus a modification of this question is: if we do not surf the
web using root, can we still get infected with spyware?

-gayn