It didnt find anything because either:

1) The MS app is beta and still has a lot of dev work to go vs. other long established players, or

2) There was nothing and SpyBot was mistaken.

Either way i dont want the MS thing. I prefer the long established, tried and true apps like SpyBot and AdAware.

One must remember that the MS software if open to hackers, crackers, and others, who would announce (loudly) these obvious shortfalls in the press and elsewhere and bring all sorts of trouble to MS if these fears were true. It's simply too stupid a move for MS to do.

If you allow a "thing" (software, hardware, whatever) to be in the hands of those who can and wish to crack it then it will be cracked. Therefore, any intentional backdoors in a piece of software which is given and run on end-user PC's will be cracked and the consequences of having put that backdoor there would outwiegh any possible benefit it may have provided to the originator.


>Here's something to ponder...
>
>On the advice of a friend I installed MS' beta anti-spyware.
>I set it up and ran it and was grateful that it found nothing. Set it up to run every second day.
>
>A little later my old SpyBot... icon hit me in the face, so I d-clicked and let 'er rip. When it was done it reported 7 items worthy of deletion.
>Still not sure why the MS tool didn't get them, but I admit to wondering if there might be some fee collecting going on at MS to leave certain one there. Terry's theory sounds as plausible.
>
>cheers
>
>>Hi Terry,
>>
>>>I know why I am not installing SP 2 - I think it places a "Patriot Act" layer in the desktop to hide spyware from the prying eyes of the task manager as well any anti-spyware engines we use. I think MS agreed to implementing "back doors" for the government and NGOS as part of the "monopoly" suit settlement.
>>
>>I think this is unlikely for two main reasons:
>>
>>1) There are so many very, very smart people out there who would love to stick it to MS and make a name for themselves in the IT world. The risk of such people finding this out would be far to great to MS. And for sure those hackers are looking for this and other types of intrusive/backdoor systems. If it were true it would destroy the MS software market and MS would not do something so silly. Software which is installed on an end-user machine will be hacked, no question. Applies to Windows too.
>>
>>2) The volume of information that a hidden backdoor spying program would create would be huge. Somehow this info would (a) need to get back to whoever is going to analyze it, and (b) those same very smart people will be analyzing all data into and out of Windows boxes looking for such traffic. The volume of info would be staggering if one assums millions and millions of PC's running the o/s. And the packets into/out of those PC's is open to inspection.
>>
>>Although I love a good conspiracy I think this one is unlikely in the extreme.