Spyware? Isn't that in Star Wars?

Here's a funny one: According to a new survey carried out by NOP and security firm Blue Coat, over 10% of people polled believe that Spyware is something from Star Wars:

Survey: IT directors are worried that most of the population have no idea what spyware is, with a sizable minority believing it is something they have seen in a movie

Some 11 percent of the British population are convinced that spyware is "a gadget from Star Wars", according to research published on Thursday.

The survey, carried out by NOP and commissioned by security company Blue Coat, appears to highlight a lack of concern in the UK market about spyware, with more than half of those surveyed unaware that spyware is software on a user's computer that tracks their behaviour and reports it back to a third party.

More from ZDNet here.

Ok, we can have a bit of a giggle over the minority belief that spyware comes from a time long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away - but it is a fairly sobering thought that a large portion of computer users still don't know the power of the dar... sorry, the evil that spyware is.

So how do we educate these bumbling Gungans? How do we give them a New Hope? Let us know your thoughts in the Galactic Senate, AKA the news forum here.