Now the Scary Part
Perhaps
the most famous legend in IBM was about a programmer at the White
Plains headquarters who supposedly included a subroutine in the
master payroll program that searched for his employee number. If the
subroutine found his ID number active, everything proceeded normally.
If, because of termination or layoff, his employee number
failed to appear, the main program was then instructed to erase all
payroll files, including all back-ups!
While
that may have been one of the great corporate legends, we are now at
that level with your PC! Welcome to the world of spyware!
No, a
spyware program isn't going to erase your paycheck, but it will check
to see if you try to remove the spyware program from your computer.
If you remove the spy ware, It may shut down the real program it came
with. Even worse, it may shut down your Windows operating system
altogether.
Steve
Gibson, of Gibson Research, first defined the term "spyware"
last year in an article that declared war on the unwanted programs.
According to Gibson, "Spy ware is any software which employs a
user's Internet connection in the background (the so-called 'back
channel') without their knowledge or explicit permission,"
Some
of the spyware programs are based on advertising systems, such as
GoZilla, which will not run without the advertising system installed.
According to Lavasoft, specialists at removing spyware
(http://www.lavasoft.de), some Web3000 installations actually replace
the Wsock32.dll without the user's permission. If you “kill” the
spyware, your system will not function
properly because the corrupted dll (dynamic link library) file is
also removed. Most of these programs can be removed safely, but not
all.
In my
case, I had to do a full re-install of Windows 98. The software
company that included the data collection program on my PC has
declared it IS not "spyware,” as I agreed to its conditions in
the End User License Agreement I accepted when I installed the base
program. I can not use its name in connection with the term
"spyware" as it claims I had full knowledge of the data
collection program.
Just
read your EULAs carefully! Check the Web site at Lavasoft for
spyware removal details, and the free program, Ad-Aware, to detect
the spyware in the first place. Also check out TechSanity at
www.techsanityiz.com for an in-depth look at spyware detection and
elimination programs.
Gibson
also has a "leak test" at his site at: http://www.grc.com.
According to Richard Schneider, a reader who was familiar with
Gibson's work, Gibson is in the process of rewriting his "opt-out"
spyware detection program, and currently recommends using Ad-Aware
from Lavasoft. Several peripheral suppliers have been caught adding
spyware to their support programs. Check carefully when installing
that new CD burner or that new hard drive. The information they send
to the Internet when you log on may be more than you care to share.
What information is collected and sent depends on the program, but
you can be sure if they wanted you to know, they'd tell you .
George Mindling ©
2001
