Yesterdays SpywareInfo list had some interesting stories about the latest happenings in the spyware world, including the RIAA's filing of hundreds of subpoena's against users of p2p programs, Morpheus's response is to help users become more anonymous, a scary story of employee's of some companies that provide internet access installing keylogging software to obtain bank details from users, Kazaa's latest version now fiddles with your hosts file or won't load if you stop it (but the newsletter details a workaround) and a couple of other stories......
As to kazaa, another option would be to have a dummy hosts file which contains the valid entries, start kazaa and then immediately move the original antiadvert hosts file back again. This could possibly allow kazaa to get some address's and there is also the possibility of caching of this information whilst kazaa is running. Also Kazaa might check whilst it is running that the hosts file has not been tampered with again. The best solution is to have a proper firewall such as Agnitum's Outpost that allows you to block outgoing traffic to certain address's so that you can stop the kazaa program contacting their ad providing servers, so it doesn't matter what is in your hosts file! Speaking of Outpost, they have now released version 2 which is apparently all singing all dancing and much improved (which is pretty tough as the first version was excellent!). Unfortunately its not a free download - you have to pay for version 2, there is a trial version available though. I'll probably take a look and see how good it is and might even buy it for home!
