Heavy fines and criminal penalties will be imposed upon those who secretly install "spyware" onto computers with the implementation of two bills approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
The bills, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., would place both civil and criminal penalties upon those who install monitoring software on someone's computer without his or her consent. A final vote is expected by the end of the year on a law that would combine elements of the two bills. Spyware is a constant nuisance for many in the Penn State community.
"Students are among the highest demographic of technology users, so we are often the ones most at risk. Any legislation that helps increase our security on the Internet is beneficial," Tiffany Iriana (sophomore-political science) said.
Lee Coraor, a computer science and engineering professor, said spyware collects information about a computer's user and slows down the machine. Specific Web sites a person visits and credit card numbers can be revealed without the user's knowledge due to spyware, he added.
"It is an inappropriate invasion of privacy on a computer," Coraor said.
Some in the Penn State community feel that despite the good efforts of legislators, anti-spyware laws would be difficult to enforce.
Anthony Vallalla, a senior systems analyst for the computer science and engineering department, said the bill would have to be enforced worldwide and that he has seen computers at Penn State infected with spyware that originated from Web sites hosted outside of the United States.
"How can you enforce something when the Internet is worldwide and global?" Vallalla asked.
Vallalla said that, on occasion, his department has had to deal with spyware on computers in his department.
"It has caused a number of problems with machine functionality and is being done without the user's knowledge. It can provide a lot of additional work for us and requires the [information technology] department to spend a lot of time to remove all of the garbage on the computer," Vallalla said.
John Domico, assistant director of information systems, said he personally uses anti-spyware software to try to keep Web sites from populating his PC.
He said his department has taken measures against spyware.
"We are trying to block that type of traffic and objects from being placed on our PCs. We don't want outside sources to know any type of data about the users," Domico said.
Andrew Knoll (junior-computer science and engineering) favors the new legislation.
"As a student this is great. Adware and spyware are really the things that can slow down a computer; they can bring around viruses and such, and without them, it should help to secure our computers," Knoll said.
However, Knoll said he sees this legislation as unrealistic because of the worldwide use of the Internet.
