BonziBuddy - The Internet Spyware That Plagued Windows (Demonstration)

(bell rings) - Depending on your age, your earliest memories of using a computer will likely vary. Some of you may remember using the Apple IIc or watching flash animations. But I'm sure that for some of you watching this, your first memories are of this little guy. - Hello. - It was in 1999, when the Internet became the home of this new BonziBuddy computer program. It seems innocent enough, but what you probably didn't know is that this friendly virtual assistant was at one point liable for over a billion dollars in punitive damages. But how? Like many malware and Internet

spyware

, the software was designed to attract many people with its seemingly useful features, with all its malevolent actions hidden inside.

It was a façade of user convenience, designed to help them during a time when mass use and understanding of the Internet was quite new. But in reality, the program collected user data for advertising purposes, in addition to contaminating Windows with irritating features and misleading system information. BonziBuddy was a wolf in sheep's clothing or purple gorilla clothing. But how could such a strange program get away with this? What is the story that gave BonziBuddy the legacy it has today? The events of this entire story date back to the mid-1990s, particularly during the prominence of Windows 95.

Microsoft had achieved tremendous success with its new operating system, marketing the product in a way that could appeal to the masses. Computers were no longer part of a specialized community nor were they just for businesses. Now your grandmother could use a computer. Microsoft made the bold decision to make everyone their target audience. But now it was time to make using the computer even easier and they needed to figure out how. The answer lay in his ambitious launch of Office 97. His approach with this program was heavily influenced by a Stanford University research project, conducted by Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves, which theorized that people subconsciously treat computers as beings. humans.

Microsoft had to find a way to capitalize on this. And that's exactly what they did when introducing Office Assistant. Clippy was the answer to all your problems. Whether you heard about this in retrospect or experienced it yourself, this obviously didn't work. It seems like Microsoft took this research post a little too literally. Clippy was universally hated and considered too annoying. It took a while for Microsoft to catch on and Clippy was eventually removed from future versions of Office in 2003, being largely ignored during that time period. Microsoft had been working on assistant technology for quite some time before Office 97, with Microsoft Bob for Windows 3.1. and they are the Microsoft Agent characters, such as the parrot Peedy and Genie, a kind of prototypes of Clippy.

So what does all this have to do with BonziBuddy? Well, Microsoft may have failed with Office Assistant, but other companies thought the concept still had potential and they could do better. About a couple of years before Windows 95, Bonzi Software was formed, created by brothers Joe and Jay Bonzi. The existence of Bonzi Software was the perfect combination of timing and pretty brilliant marketing. It came about during a time when people didn't really understand the Internet or know what direction it was going. Because of this, Bonzi Software didn't really need much ingenuity to have some success. What helped them get off the ground was their voice email app.

Instead of sending text messages via email, you can send a voice recording of yourself. This may not seem very practical considering that you can simply call someone on the phone using the exact same phone line you use to connect, but it didn't matter. There was something on the Internet and that was great. This allowed them to create other programs that would improve Internet speed and protect your PC from potential security breaches. These programs didn't really do anything more than create a firewall and simply change basic system settings. But this did not stop Bonzi Software from continuing to grow and establish a name.

When Clippy was coincidentally installed on most Windows desktops, Bonzi Software had released the program you all were waiting for, BonziBuddy. It used technology very similar to Microsoft Agent and even used one of its characters, Peedy, the talking green parrot. However, this version of BonziBuddy would not last long. And a change of character would quickly occur. Whether it was due to copyright infringement on Microsoft's part or simply a desire to be more original, we're not exactly sure. All we know is that the new BonziBuddy would feature Bonzi Software's own character, a talking purple gorilla. Most other parts of the program would remain unchanged using Microsoft's speech engine and a similar user interface.

But what exactly did the program do? Well, as a virtual desktop assistant, its main features would be designed exclusively for the user's comfort. This would include keeping track of and reminding you of events on your calendar, basically a virtual secretary, reading your emails out loud to you, telling you jokes or fun facts, using a built-in search tool that would allow you to use the program to search. things on the web and a custom text-to-speech tool, where the program spoke everything you typed. Some features might have seemed quite useless or overly complicated, but the big selling point was that it was free.

Well, it's not exactly a selling point since users don't pay for anything, but there were premium versions of the program that users could purchase to take advantage of its features even more. Regardless, BonziBuddy was receiving numerous downloads from a wide range of demographics. All kinds of people used it, but over time things started to get a little weird. Since BonziBuddy was going to be your virtual friend, of course he would have to get to know you. This would create a warm introduction to the program for the user and allow them to optimize their PC. Would I ask for your name, your age, your address?

Yes, it seems a little obvious now, but it took a while for most users to realize that BonziBuddy was essentially

spyware

. In reality, the program was using a backdoor Trojan horse to take this information and place it in the Bonzi Software database without the user's consent. This would allow them to use this information to install certain pop-up ads on your computer, again, without consent. The real trick to this was that these weren't just your typical annoying ads. Bonzi Software did something that, while it seems a bit obvious and disingenuous now, was quite new and disturbing at the time.

These were ads that appeared as critical Windows errors, informing you that your computer was at risk unless you installed Bonzi programs. BonziBuddy would also repeatedly change your home page to the Bonzi website, as well as its default built-in search engine, again, without asking you. So not only was BonziBuddy Internet spyware, it was also malware and adware, pretty much every bad name out there. With this news, people became more apprehensive about the kind of things they downloaded from the web and now we are on the lookout for the BonziBuddy virus. Although depending on who you talk to, calling BonziBuddy a virus is just as misleading as the actual program is.

For software to fall under the definition of a computer virus, it must be able to replicate in a harmful way that allows it to spread across multiple systems. And since BonziBuddy doesn't replicate, it wouldn't fit this term. But not everyone agrees with this. By installing a backdoor, BonziBuddy allows other malicious programs, such as viruses, to enter your system. Because it was equally destructive in the long run, people might as well call it a virus, since its behavior is indistinguishable to most computer users, who will simply think that any bad program is a virus. At the end of the day, this is purely a semantic argument and does not take away from the amount of damage that BonziBuddy actually caused.

It was too much. In 2002, Bonzi Software faced its first class-action lawsuit over deceptive pop-up ads, in which they were ordered to give $500 to each user who found one and another $5 for each ad impression. Adding all this together, Bonzi Software owed billions of dollars in repairs. Considering it was more money than Microsoft's entire antitrust lawsuit, this amount didn't seem very realistic for a third-party Internet company. Consequently, Bonzi Software settled for 175,000. Things were getting a little tight for Bonzi Software. Finances were tight and the company was essentially walking on eggshells, eliminating misleading pop-up ad designs and flying under the radar of litigious eyes.

But the final nail in the coffin would come in 2004, when the company would face another lawsuit. BonziBuddy's spying tendencies did not stop and the once interesting feature of collecting a user's age would be the kiss of death for the company. Because many users were under the age of 13, BonziBuddy's practices violated COPPA, collecting information from children without the permission of parents or guardians. When Bonzi Software was forced to pay $75,000 in damages, it became clear that this was the end. Bonzi Software's 11-year journey ended that same year and the company went under. And Joe and Jay Bonzi left to form other companies.

Unsurprisingly, the death of Bonzi Software led to the death of BonziBuddy. It would quickly lose full support for future versions of Windows and, despite being available for download for another four years after the company's dissolution, would quickly be forgotten. However, as time passed, so did nostalgia and research. The program had a resurrection of sorts in 2014, when it was repopularized in a YouTube video by Joel of the Vinesauce channel, a video that focused on destroying Windows XP with malicious programs. It didn't take long for the show to become an Internet phenomenon, the butt of many online jokes.

BonziBuddy seemed to serve as a testament to how quickly things age on the Internet. Just 10 years ago, people were ironically using this program, which now seemed completely ridiculous and obviously suspicious. Oh yeah, BonziBuddy, I remember. Fortunately, since Bonzi Software no longer exists, BonziBuddy can no longer collect user information, making it essentially benign. It is now available for download from several third-party websites, allowing it to truly serve as the computer assistant it was superficially advertised as. No more danger, right? Well, let's find out. We could talk about BonziBuddy all day, but I think it would be more interesting to put it to the test.

Since Bonzi Software is now a defunct company, I don't suspect that BonziBuddy will be able to do much damage. But I would like to show you just some of the minimal functionality it still has, the ones that were primarily announced for the program. The program is already downloaded on my computer. This way I will save you all the trouble of installing it. Everything looks good on my end. So let's give it a chance, shall we? - Well hello. - Hello. - I don't think they introduced us correctly. I'm Bonzi. What is your name? - This is where we record information, we know BonziBuddy.

I will complete it immediately. - Nice to meet you Brian. - Here are some additional logging things that I'll go ahead and complete. Okay, now let's take a look at our options. As you can see, even now there is a wide variety of things you can still do with the assistant. Probably nothing particularly useful today, but they still work for the most part. What will we try first? Let's have him tell a joke. - It is not a problem. What did the digital clock say to the grandfather clock? Look dad, no hands. - Beautiful. That's totally my kind of stupid humor.

Let's do another one. - It is not a problem. What is the saddest tree? A weeping willow. - These are really good. Or maybe the comedy bar is too low for me, I don't know. Go ahead and tell a fun fact. - Here's something, Brian. Did you know that the Earth moves around the Sun at 66,641 miles per hour? - Huh. - Who knows. - Something like that. Let's go ahead and play some games. (crab click) Okay, it works. - Let the games begin. - This one ages quite well. Games like these really don't go out of style.

Unfortunately, I can find myself playing these for hours, so we should probably cut it short before things get out of hand. Ah OK. I'm not sure what I did, but it's okay. - Okay, Brian, where do you want to go? (keyboard clicks) (Bonzi boings) - As you can see, some features just don't work anymore. And others, like the calendar feature, have just shown their age, as you can use the reminder feature built into Windows 10and on other popular operating systems. From the things I just showed you, it seems that BonziBuddy is quite harmless and may be a little difficult to imagine as malicious software.

But as we discussed, this is because most of their harmful practices were subtle. It would install a backdoor Trojan on your computer, making it more vulnerable to entry by other programs. Basically, your computer has a locked garage door and BonziBuddy opens that lock. It would allow Bonzi Software to add its pop-up ads to your computer. Based on their appearance, typical users might think that these are genuine Windows errors and would end up installing Bonzi Software deceptively, probably without a second thought. And of course, anything you enter in the registration form will go directly to Bonzi Software's servers, where they can basically do whatever they want with it.

Of course, as I already mentioned, Bonzi Software no longer exists. Therefore, it is very likely that these programs no longer do these things. So, final verdict, BonziBuddy.Now is basically an outdated virtual assistant software and is generally fine by today's standards. But anyway, any modern and capable antivirus software will prevent you from downloading it immediately. That being said, you should still be careful when downloading this program if you are considering doing so. Download at your own risk. - Thanks so much for looking. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos.

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