ZeoBIT MacKeeper Crapware Marketing Moron Attack

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Yesterday I got hit with my first ZeoBIT MacKeeper bomber page while searching on Google. I call it a 'bomber' page because it uses JavaScript (the sworn enemy of web security) to force a popup page into your web browser, despite your popup settings. When the nasty page appeared and blared its rhetoric at me, I thought I must have found a new version of MAC Defender. But no, this is a legal Mac software suite being foisted at you via offensive marketing moron methods.


The nasty ZeoBIT MacKeeper popup page attempted to tell me that the Google result page I had open was considered potentially dangerous. Right. Therefore, I used Google again to find out what this crapware really was. I was pleased to discover that my net colleague Thomas Reed had created an excellent write-up about this crapware last week. Thomas and I work together in a Mac malware discussion group on the net. Enjoy:

Beware MacKeeper

I also found an article about MacKeeper provided by Daniel Feeney:

MacKeeper, a rather slimy tale

To quote one comment from Daniel's initial review of MacKeeper:

Mostly what they do is take existing features of your operating system and put it in one place, and make you pay for the privilege. Add in their aggressive marketing, the fact it uses Wine (classic half-assed windows developers trying to cash in on gullible Mac users), and the reports of horrible system performance after installing this crap, and well, do you really want to deal with it?

Needless to say: 
I suggest that NO ONE install MacKeeper or believe a word ZeoBIT spew at you via their marketing moron attack methods.


[Marketing Moron: Any human who uses abusive or disrespectful methods of selling or promoting a product or service. Antonym: Marketing Maven. Use in a sentence: 'The decay of the modern business practices is morbidly illustrated by the unprecedented increase of marketing morons, self-destructive brigands who treat customers with contempt. ]

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Hilarious Anti-Apple Security FUD Attack! By eWeek!

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Lots going on this week, with me gathering up news from all corners. But when I see something as hilarious as this, I have to post it ASAP. It's one of the infamous slide show articles over at eWeek. What is hilarious is that it says nothing that wasn't shouted to the rafters in 2005 by Symantec when they were trying to prop up their worst-in-class anti-malware application for Mac OS X. What I am posting here is verbatim. I did NOT add any capitals. The SHOUTING is all their's:

Security: Mac Malware Attacks Prompt Security Vendors to Rush Out Antivirus Tools

By Fahmida Y. Rashid on 2010-11-12
SECURITY VENDORS ARE SAYING THAT ATTACKS ON THE MAC ARE NOW SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH THAT APPLE USERS SHOULD INVEST IN ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR WHAT WAS ONCE THE "INVULNERABLE" PLATFORM. WITH KOOBFACE VARIANT BOONANA FRESH IN PEOPLE'S MINDS, THE CONCEPT OF A VIRUS ATTACKING MACS SEEMS LESS LAUGHABLE THAN IT DID EVEN TWO YEARS AGO. "MAC USERS MUST REMEMBER THAT LESS TARGETED IS NOT THE SAME AS INVULNERABLE," SAID RICHARD WANG, MANAGER OF SOPHOSLABS. THE THREAT IS STILL NOT THAT PREVALENT, WITH ONLY "ONE TO TWO" ATTACKS ON MACS EACH WEEK, COMPARED WITH THE "TENS OF THOUSANDS" PER DAY AGAINST WINDOWS PCS. MAC OS X HAS ONLY 10.6 PERCENT MARKET SHARE IN THE UNITED STATES, ACCORDING TO IDC AND GARTNER, BUT THE DAY HACKERS WILL FIND THE PLATFORM WORTH TARGETING IS NOT FAR OFF, VENDORS SAID. MAC ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE IS NOT NEW, BUT IT USED TO HAVE A BAD REPUTATION FOR BEING RESOURCE-HUNGRY AND INCONVENIENT. THAT'S SOON TO CHANGE AS VENDORS RELEASE NEW MAC ANTIVIRUS TOOLS THAT ARE QUITE UNOBTRUSIVE. HERE ARE SOME OF THEM...

OMFG! MAC USERS ARE ALL GONNA DIE!

My usual point: NEVER has anyone but trolls said Mac OS X was "invulnerable" or anything similar. It's a propaganda trick: Make up a nasty, indicting quote with no attribution provided. Yes, Fahmida Y. Rashid of eWeek and Richard Wang of Sophos are acting like assholes. But this trick has been pulled countless times. Therefore, they're acting like unoriginal assholes. Just laugh.

I could do my usual lecture about the insane nature of the 'Security Through Obscurity' myth. If you care, go back a few years in my posts. Just know that Windows has over 1000x more malware than Mac OS X on a per user basis, which blows the stupid myth off the planet. Such silliness. But that's what happens when Marketing Morons get desperate to sell Sell SELL!
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U2 can B Incognito On The InterWebs!

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I was just thinking of this today: InterWeb surveillance. Being not exactly friendly toward the "We Must Know ALL!" attitude of the US government and marketing morons, along with "The Customer Is CRIMINAL" attitude of the Corporate Oligarchy, I simply want to be left the frack alone to my personal privacy. No one ever has the right to 'watch' me. I don't deal with peeping pervs at my house, or over the InterTubes.

Therefore, I don't deal with Google collecting data on me wherever I go on the net. I've written about Tracking Cookies here on the blog and how to subvert them. But I get really tired of various websites still attempting to load Google Analytics.

Then I clicked over to Intego's Mac Security Blog this evening. (You'd think they'd pay me for all the PR I give them! ;-) To my synchronistic joy I found a great little article about a niffy kewl Safari extension that does ALL the Google blocking for me. It blocks FaceBook surveillance as well! And here it is:

INCOGNITO

Incognito is a Safari extension that prevents Google and Facebook from following you on the web.

It's a jungle out there
When browsing the web, you are continuously being tracked. Not only by the websites you are visiting, but also by major companies that embed their 'content' into other websites through ads and analytics.
As a result, companies like Google and Facebook have an almost complete picture of your online activity.

Your online counterspy
Incognito protects your privacy by blocking Google Adsense and Google Analytics on non-Google pages. In addition, it allows you to optionally block Facebook content on third-party websites as well as embedded YouTube movies outside of the YouTube website.

No ad-blocker
Although effectively blocking Google Adwords, Incognito is no dedicated ad-blocker. It simply prevents companies from gathering information outside of their own website.

It's FREE.

A similar tool for Firefox is Google Sharing.

The Firefox Addon for the GoogleSharing system. GoogleSharing ultimately aims to provide a level of anonymity that will prevent google from tracking your searches, movements, and what websites you visit.

It's also FREE.

BTW: I also use Safari AdBlocker. And Safari Cookies. I also frequently use software from The Tor Project (formerly The Onion Project), including Vidalia and Tor Button for Firefox, which provides excellent proxy anonymity on the TubeWebs.

IOW: I am the boss of my Internet browsing, not the government, not Google, not the Red Hacker Alliance, not hacker/crackers, not Apple, not Microsoft, not the Neo-Con-Jobs, not nobody, not no how but ME. It is in keeping with my Positive Anarchy point of view. I make all the honest, responsible choices I wish to with total disregard for the extraneous interests of others. Control freaks: Go have an aneurism over it. :-P

Speaking of which: Over at my MacSmarticles blog this coming month, I'm going to be providing lesson articles on how to setup and use Tor, via Vidalia and Tor Button for Firefox. Sorting out how to use tools is a huge PITA if you're not a computer geek. Therefore, I shall be translating the methods into human-speak for mere mortals. Because this is geek level technology, it's still a bit time consuming. But once you get the hang of the protocol and set it all up for the first time, it ain't no big deal.

You too can be 100% INCOGNITO on the Webnets!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MenInBlack
The Stranglers
© 1979

We're not here to destroy
We are here to employ

We have come to make you function
So we can eat at our functions

We are the meninblack ...

Information can destroy
So we'll treat you just like toys

Healthy livestock so we can eat
Human flesh is porky meat...

We are the meninblack...

We don't approve of artificial food
We grow you for our own good

First we gave you the wheel
Then we made you live to kill

So the best stock will survive
We eat you all alive

We are the meninblack ...
~~

Twitter Spamrat Attacks -> Nuisance

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Last night I became aware that someone has, dare I say, 'hacked' Twitter such that logged in users are instantaneously befriended/followed by scum spammers. For all I know, this is deliberate by the Twitter folks or there is some other nebulous explanation. What I do know is that it is a BLOODY NUISANCE!

Thankfully it is easy to block the spamrats as they show up in your followers list. But then you have to scour through your followers list at least every day to kick them out. So far it is also easy to spot them by checking out their page. It will be full of moronic spam tweets. If by chance you've been vacant enough to choose to follow them and your tweet collection turns into a pile of blithering idiotic ads for rubbish, again it is easy to kick them.

I hope Twitter get a handle on this, if indeed it isn't some sort of sell-out collaboration, because it is soooo boring having to sort through your lists and play Spot-The-Loony. Bloody! Bloody I say!
:-Q********
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