Lots of people have been pointing me to this writeup, entitled "Have we lost the war" (as you might have gathered!)

There's a lot of talk about what some products do (and don't) do, but the two main extracts are below. From the article:

"Have we really got to a point where users have to admit that they cannot get rid of the spyware infesting their PCs? Why else would we need to create a 'safe' connection before accessing an online bank?"

Well, why not create a safe connection? Isn't that what you're doing when you install Antivirus, Antispyware and a Firewall? Making things inherently safer? So how is applying tighter security some kind of "admission" that we've lost a so-called war?

"Instead of killing off spyware we are learning how to live with it, which makes me think that this battle is almost over."

Again, this is nothing new. We've been "living with Spyware" since forever, so either nothing has changed or the "battle" has been lost from day one. It all sounds a touch self-pitying to me. Either you do something about it or you shut up shop. And if you shut up shop, you can't expect any mercy from the bad guys. take Blue Security - they were recently smashed into the ground by angry Spammers. Well, they waved the white flag and "gave up" - because they didn't want anymore fallout hitting innocent websites. The thing that Blue Security missed, is that the Spammers don't care and have continued to blast them into little pieces (and the innocent bystanders, too).

I'm reminded of the Stones song, "All or Nothing". I'm also reminded of "Street Fighting Man", but mostly because I like the version by Rage Against the Machine. Which is also strangely fitting, come to think of it.