In an effort to help parents and others understand the epidemic that is spyware on our student laptops I wrote up a paper on it. It can be seen here. It is not the most technical of pieces since it was written for a very broad audience. I tried to explain the concepts and give some level of detail. Parts of it speak directly to my school, however much of it applies everywhere.
Oh and for you Mac zealots like a certain friend don't bother poking holes in my myths section. It has already been done.
Broken link. httpS://...