Spyware has a negative impact in two area: privacy and computer performance.  On the other hand, it has a positive effects by offsetting the cost of hosting web pages, and writing software.  From personal experience, I have discovered that people are generally unaware that spyware exists until it effects the performance of their computer.  There are a number of ways to get infected with spyware, although the most common is downloading and installing a 'free program'.  In reality, the 'free program' is a bundle of programs, and only thorough reading of the documentation will reveal a general description of the purpose behind the rest of these programs.  Attempting to conceal the functions of the adware spyware programs within End User Licensing (EULA) agreement is deceptive. Very few people actually take the time to read them.

The articles published on aselabs are a good example of how badly performance can degraded by spyware.  This picture shows that the processor is dedicating 100% of its time, and 200MB of RAM, to running software.  According to the author, Aron Shatz, the picture was taken after a reboot, meaning that all those software applications are automatically loaded at the time when Windows starts, as opposed to being manually loaded by the user. 

The processor is the hardware part of the computer which executes all the instructions necessary to perform the whatever task the user wants their computer to do.  When a computer is assigned to run a program, the program is loaded into main memory (RAM) of the computer.  RAM is another hardware component of the computer.  Since it has no moving parts it can communicate with the processor hundreds of times more quickly then the hard disk, where the program is permanently stored.  Processor time and main memory are primary resources as far as computers are concerned.  The picture clearly shows that spyware is using a significant percentage of the system resources.  Any application that the user wishes to run, such as Microsoft Word, would have to compete with the spyware programs for access to these resources, and on this machine would run extremely slowly.  Conflicts between applications are much more likely to occur with so much activity happening in the background, and conflicts mean the computer is likely to crash.

Even though the graph shows 100% of the processor's time utilized, not all of it is being dedicated towards spyware.  Windows will allocate resources to itself before any other program is loaded, meaning that spyware is not using all of the resources at the moment.  I will use a snapshot of my computer as an example.  Note that I have a copy of MS Word open, MS FrontPage and a bunch of programs such as a virus scanner, graphics card drivers, and firewall program running in the background.  My processor is using about 4% of its time to run these applications, and using about 164 MB of RAM.  My applications are responding immediately to my commands, and I am not worried about random crashes.

To make matters worse, some spyware is capable of capturing keystrokes.  Since this software is run from your computer, it is possible to capture keystrokes before another application such as web browser can encrypt them.  Key logging software also makes use of another resource, the Input/Output (I/O) system.  More specifically, it will use the modem or network connection to send the captured keystrokes to the person, possibly a criminal, who wrote the software.  Consider that a credit card number entered on that secure web page might not be safe.  Yes, the web page was secure, but they are not responsible if your computer was insecure.

The more legitimate spyware producers has no wish to do something so blatantly illegal, and simply want to know what interests you, and contact information, like an email address.  If they can build a reasonably sized database, this information can be sold to advertisers.  Programs that collect information almost never specify exactly what information is being collected, but giving out an email address to a spyware programmed and is like giving out a telephone number to a telemarketing company.   Besides collecting information and using your internet connection to send it to interested parties, a spyware program can also receive information.  This function is generally used to display pop-up advertisements, a method that most internet users find annoying.  Use of the internet connection marks the third computer resource sucked up by these 'free programs'. 

Since the user has paid for all the resources used by spyware, I cannot consider programs that come with spyware 'free'.  In the future, spyware will probably continue get worse because it is motivated by money. 

If you have made it this far, then I will assume you are interested in spyware, so check out my other paper that attempts to give some sort of explanation on why advertisers are spending money on the internet advertising.

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