The Students Who Tracked Down Xupiter

from the good-work dept

We've written about the positively evil spyware/adware product Xupiter before, which is designed to install itself on your computer without you even realizing it, and then makes it very difficult to remove. When two teenagers discovered it on their computers and went searching for information on how to remove it, they found out that people were putting together a class action lawsuit against the makers of Xupiter. They joined in on the lawsuit, but decided to go even further and do much of the research necessary to track down those who created the spyware - even getting each half of the father-and-son team of scammers on the phone (briefly). They were apparently cursed out in all sorts of language they weren't expecting, suggesting the level of stability of the folks who created the spyware. In the meantime, the same two students are working on something called the Internet Privacy Conservation Council, which is designed to be a central information source for "deceptive, privacy-compromising Internet advertising practices" and how to combat them. Good for them.