Anyone here use Norton Anti-Virus software? You might want to consider uninstalling it and switching to a new anti-virus, because, ironically, Norton itself comes packaged with spyware. There's a program included with Norton called PIFTS.EXE, which goes through your history and cookies, and interacts with Google Desktop, before sending the information to Symantec, and a Washington-based company called SwapDrive.

When people started asking about PIFTS.EXE on the Symantec forum, their posts were deleted. Interesting, eh? The mods say it was due to spam, but 4chan caught wind of it and spammed a shitstorm after those legitimate topics were deleted.


1) The file itself is designed specifically to send usage history (In the form of Internet Explorer history files, Temporary Internet Files, and Google Desktop information) to 2 private servers: One owned by Microsoft and the other owned by a Washington-based corporation known as "SwapDrive". This in and of itself is a breach of our privacy and should be explained immediately.

2) An inconsistency I noticed with the .exe in question was the fact that it has a very curious amount of padding. Padding is often used in cracking and hacking to force an .exe file to match the expected size of the program. However, why would you need any kind of padding in an official .exe from Symantec? Also, there's a lot of nonsense strings in the file; anything from the days of the week to the alphabet. Which tells me you're using even MORE padding.[/quote]


The Washington Post has written about it, and there's an Encyclopedia Dramatica article too, if that's more your taste. Here's the official PIFTS.EXE thread on the Symantec forums.