Do you know who is snooping around your computer right now?

Written by Joe Reinbold


How secure is your computer? Most of us have virus protection and probably feel pretty safe. But how many know that there can be many individuals out there who may be trying to snoop (or actually snooping) around your hard disk all day long? I would venture that there are not many sitting at their computer right now who have even thought about it!

High speed access torepparttar Internet, i.e. DSL, cable and a couple of others have openedrepparttar 132126 doors to our work areas. I had even recorded attacks on my computer when I was using a local dial up service. The high speed access capability is great, I know that from personal experience. But it does open you up to extra risks since your Internet connection is probably open all day, even when you are not using it.

Intrusions onrepparttar 132127 Internet are common because hackers do frequent scans looking for systems they can break into. A typical hacker may scan thousands. He or she isn't targeting you personally. Inrepparttar 132128 hour precedingrepparttar 132129 writing of this article I had three attacks on my computer through my cable hookup. Two were hackers probing to see if they could get in andrepparttar 132130 other was a hacker checking to see if I had a specific Trojan program that might have compromised my system so that they could get in. This is a regular daily occurrence. Luckily my system has a software (firewall) program that detects and stops any attacks. It also logs inrepparttar 132131 attacks so that I can see what they were. The program is called Black Ice Defender, http://www.networkice.com and cost me about $40. It was well worthrepparttar 132132 price. There are a number of programs out there and one that seems to be generally recommended along with Black Ice Defender is ZoneAlarm http://www.zonelabs.com which happens to be free (free for personal and non-profit use).

Spys in CyberWorld

Written by Kim Haas


Did you know your own computer is syping on you? Did you know that every click you make on your windows start menu is logged to a hidden, encrypted database in your computer?

It's very important that you read a site's privacy policy to find out what information a web site gathers about you when you visit and how they intend to use it.

People ARE spying on you!! Companies are beginning to checkrepparttar contents of their employees computers after working hours. Have you been surfing and sending email during working hours? Would your boss approve of this? If not, your job could be in jeopardy.

Think this sounds a bit outrageous?

--- July 2000 --- FACT: 50 Workers At Dow Chemical Co.'s Headquarters Site In Michigan were fired and another 200 were Disciplined for distributing, downloading or saving pictures that were either pornographic or violent in nature.

FACT: Merck Fired Two Workers And Disciplined Several Dozen Others for whatrepparttar 132125 Company called "Inappropriate Use Of The Internet."

FACT: Xerox Corporation, Fired 40 workers and The New York Times terminated 23 employees at a Data Processing Center for similar offenses.

--- January 5, 2001 --- Leading Insurance Company Royal and Sun Alliance sacked 10 people and suspended at least 77 overrepparttar 132126 distribution of "Lewd" E-mails.

Your computer keeps records of both your online and off-line activities. Everything you do is recorded. If you view web pages, movies or videos, play .wav or .midi files....it is all recorded to your hard drive! Did you know that when you do a search onrepparttar 132127 internet, this search information is recorded to hidden, encrypted files on your PC? Do you really know what's been downloaded or hidden on your computer?

Forensic analysis has become technologically superior in finding evidence of all sorts. They can remove your PC's hard drive and discover things about you that you probably didn't even know was there. Things you "thought" you deleted. You might think you've cleaned out all your sensitive files, butrepparttar 132128 truth is, many of them are still there.

Peter Constantine of Data Discovery http://www.teleport.com/~peterc/ ) says that "....today's computers are "grabbing material and tucking it away in little pigeonholes... The user has no idea thatrepparttar 132129 data is out there."

Digital Intelligence, Inc, http://www.digitalintel.com/freddie.htm ) has developed F.R.E.D.D.I.E. (F)orensic (R)ecovery of (E)vidence (D)evice (I)nterrogation (E)quipment which is portable and can be used in a crime scene (or any other time for that matter) to recover data from a multitude of electronic devices including, hard drives, CD's, Floppys, Zip drives and tape cartridges.

Skeptical person that I am, I decided to do an experiment to find out exactly HOW MUCH hidden stuff really was on my computer. If you are a Windows 95/98 user, try this experiment yourself.

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