On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 10:13, Michael Robertson noted > I took note of article in yesterdays CJ about AOL providing spyware > protection and that earthlink already has it for windows users. Is this > something that us Mac users should consider having? I run all the latest > security updates with software update, and am using a router for my dsl > connection. I went to versiontracker and typed in "spyware" and was directed > to a program called > MacScan X ver. b8. Any opinions on this?
I have played with MacScan, just to waste my time, and it found nothing. Perhaps the newer versions know more than the older ones. Spring Cleaning also has some anti-spyware capability, but this seems to be mostly emptying the browser cookie jars. You can also use a program like Little Snitch that tracks outgoing traffic on your machine. This lets you see if spyware is trying to phone home. A quick test is to open a shell and type ps to see the processes that are running in your session. If there's something running you don't recognize, ask us here what it is. You can also do ps ax, but this will also give you all the system processes, and there will likely be many you don't recognize. I don't believe there's much of a spyware problem on the Mac even though there's apparently a significant problem on Windows. Just as it's easier to install viruses and worms on Windows, it easier to install spyware. | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 27. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | This list's page is <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>.
