Scareware Creator Fined $163,000,000

Rydian

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So you know all those fake antivirus programs and the popups claiming that they're scanning you're computer and you need to pay to fix "problems" they "found"? Well, it looks like the mind behind a few of them got caught.


Ross is believed to be the mind behind nefarious "utilities" like WinAntiVirus, Winfixer, FreeRepair, DriveCleaner and System Doctor.
[...]
The imposter utilities managed to snatch over one million paying customers -- yep, one million -- who believed buying Ross' software would help alleviate their purported PC problems.
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Dann Woolf

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A fine is not good enough, kill him immediately.
How about instead, we hang her up like a pinata and let people who have fallen victim to scareware beat her with a bat?

EDIT: I think we've learned that if a woman has a surname that sounds like a man's name and you refer to her solely by her last name, people are gonna think she's a guy.
 
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Foxi4

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As long as she's brought to justice and forced to stop these practices at once, I'm glad. Those pop-ups are quite annoying whenever my pop-up filter is out-of-date.

EDIT: "She", apparently. My bad. ;)
 
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RupeeClock

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FAST6191

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Awesome, might get a few more interesting IT support calls in the near future (granted I have not had any of those for a few months now and nowhere near as many as the heyday not to mention they actually got easier to remove).

Now if we can do something about those people that phone people up and try to scare them into allowing remote access then life will be better- their prices now seem to be up around £150 and their script is such that they might actually be able to fool someone that is partially versed in IT.
 
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SuzieJoeBob

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Kristy Ross is a b**** for making the scareware that she did, but it was funny watching the stuck up people in my highschool buy WinAntiVirus, even though they had Norton, then get pissed off about their computers crashing. The people who knew how to solve their issues, like myself and a few others, told them that their brand-new laptops were gone forever. We even went so far as to tell them that their warranties were void due to purchasing WinAntiVirus!!! We had so much fun....
 
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Guild McCommunist

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Kristy Ross is a b**** for making the scareware that she did, but it was funny watching the stuck up people in my highschool buy WinAntiVirus, even though they had Norton, then get pissed off about their computers crashing. The people who knew how to solve their issues, like myself and a few others, told them that their brand-new laptops were gone forever. We even went so far as to tell them that their warranties were void due to purchasing WinAntiVirus!!! We had so much fun....

I think WinAntiVirus is better than Norton. It'd at least not detect itself as a virus.
 
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Fear Zoa

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Well that's all good and all but now hundreds more are gonna pop up in its place. I highly doubt this will go towards the people scammed nor will it deter others from pulling the same scam.
 

Rydian

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Kristy Ross is a b**** for making the scareware that she did, but it was funny watching the stuck up people in my highschool buy WinAntiVirus, even though they had Norton, then get pissed off about their computers crashing. The people who knew how to solve their issues, like myself and a few others, told them that their brand-new laptops were gone forever. We even went so far as to tell them that their warranties were void due to purchasing WinAntiVirus!!! We had so much fun....
Well isn't that... douche-y.

If you know what you're doing, why not try helping people?
 
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