Spyware Weekly Newsletter :· December 17, 2003

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President Bush Signs 'Can Spam' Act Into Law
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President Bush on Tuesday signed the 'Can Spam' Act into law. As with many of the misguided laws that have been passed in recent years in the United States, this law is sure to make the situation worse while doing nothing to solve it.

The 'Can Spam' Law makes it legal for companies to email massive amounts of advertisements to people who do not want it. All a spammer needs to do now is include "ADV" in the subject line of their spam and include a working "opt-out" method. That's it.

Do those two things and the US Congress grants you permission to send as many unwanted advertisements as you wish around the world. It will be up to you to remove yourself from spammers' mailing lists, not up to the spammer to have your permission before sending you their junk.

It makes you wonder if the Congress and the President actually use the internet themselves. Anyone who has been online lately knows that spam is out of control.

What makes this outrageous law even worse is the fact that it overrides more sensible and effective laws such as those in California and Virginia. Virginia outlaws many tactics used by spammers to hide the origin of their spam. California has banned spam altogether.

Neither state will be able to enforce their laws because of the lobbying by the spamming industry. The Direct Marketing Association and other spammers saw to it that effective state laws would be overridden. They managed to squash all hope of amending the laws to allow enforcement of existing state laws.

The same thing happened three months ago when a new federal privacy law was put into effect. On August 27, 2003, then California Governor Gray Davis signed one of the nation's most sweeping financial privacy laws, allowing Californians to prevent banks, insurance companies and other financial companies from sharing their personal information without their express permission.

Unfortunately, heavy lobbying by the financial industry in Washington saw to it that no provision was made for state laws with stricter privacy protections. Banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions paid good money while lobbying for the right to continue selling their customers personal information. And the Congress delivered just what they wanted. Clearly, the DMA took careful note of this.

All I can do is make two suggestions here. First, write to your Federal Representative and to your Senators and ask them to please amend this horrible law. Second, find a good spam filter. You definitely are going to need one after this law takes effect.


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SpyCop Antispyware and Evidence Terminator
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There is the sort of spyware that comes from installing programs like Kazaa and Imesh. This kind of spyware will track your web usage to produce more relevent pop-up ads. This is an annoying and unfair invasion of privacy. However, other than the aggravation of dealing with pop-up ads and spam, this kind of spyware usually is not dangerous. These can be cleaned up relatively easily with Ad-aware and Spybot.

More dangerous are the surveillance and monitoring programs. These programs are used to steal passwords to bank and credit card accounts. A business rival can bribe an employee to install spyware on the company network. Or the company itself might install spyware to watch you while you work. These programs cost money to buy for testing and not all antispyware companies can afford to keep up with each new version.

SpyCop is the leading solution for finding computer monitoring spy programs, keyloggers, and commercially available software designed specifically to record your screen, email and passwords. SpyCop will detect the spy, tell you when it was installed, and disable it. SpyCop claims to have the largest database of surveillance spyware, 385 targets in all.

SpyCop also makes Evidence Terminator, a program that cleans out the traces of computer usage that Windows leaves lying around. This includes browser cache, temp files and recently opened documents among other things. You should shred paper documents at home and in the office if you don't want people reading them. The same goes for your PC.

As always, we have arranged for discounts. Here are the details:
SpyCop Home is 20% off: http://www.spywareinfo.com/rd/sch1217
SpyCop Corporate is 20% off: http://www.spywareinfo.com/rd/scc1217
Evidence Terminator is 20% off: http://www.spywareinfo.com/rd/et1217
Spycop and Evidence Terminator together are reduced by $44.95: http://www.spywareinfo.com/rd/scet


For six or more copies, contact Catherine and she will be able to give you a 32% discount.

More information about Spycop http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/spycop/
More information about Evidence Terminator http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads/spycop/eterminate.php

Don't forget, even if you catch all the spyware on your computer, someone can still sneak up behind you and peek over your shoulder. Spycop won't help with that, so you might think about having this little gadget.


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Computer? Or Computing Console?
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I always have been fascinated by computers and the promise they held. With a powerful enough computer, you could do nearly anything. Computers and the Internet allowed the little guy to become independent and do things without the support or blessing of governments and large corporations.

Allowing the average citizen to exercise that much independence is not in the interest of those who traditionally have held most of the power and influence in our societies. It frightens them, just as printing presses frightened medieval kings and bishops and just as typewriters frightened 20th century communist oligarchies. Those who wield power usually are unwilling to part with it.

Inevitably, when technology swings the balance of power toward the common person, it leads to efforts to stamp out or restrict that new technology. An effort to restrict the power of personal computers is underway right now. The so called "Trusted Computing" movement is the most direct example of this effort.

"Trusted Computing" is billed as a program to make computers safe from viruses and other malicious attacks. If "Trusted Computing" has that effect, then it will be a side effect, not the goal. "Trusted Computing" means that companies that own software and content licenses will be able to trust that computers will no longer allow common people to remain independent of them.

Once "Trusted Computing" becomes the standard in all new computers, the "personal computer" will become the "computing console", a device with limited functionality.

Compare a PC to a Playstation game console. You can play games on both, but the PC allows you to do so many other things. The game console allows you to do only what its maker allows it to do. This is the direction that personal computers are taking.

So far, it seems that Microsoft is pushing the "Trusted Computing" concept the hardest. However, I expect Apple will follow suit eventually. Linux is looking more and more attractive all the time. Then again, even Linux may not be immune if laws are passed requiring all new computers to support "Trusted Computing". Any wagers on how long it takes before someone suggests such a law?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3606168/

Picture, if you will, an information infrastructure that encourages censorship, surveillance and suppression of the creative impulse. Where anonymity is outlawed and every penny spent is accounted for. Where the powers that be can smother subversive (or economically competitive) ideas in the cradle, and no one can publish even a laundry list without the imprimatur of Big Brother. Some prognosticators are saying that such a construct is nearly inevitable. And this infrastructure is none other than the former paradise of rebels and free-speechers: the Internet.


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MyIE2 Updated
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The MyIE2 browser has been updated to version 0.9.11. MyIE2 is a "wrapper" for Internet Explorer. The browser itself is still Internet Explorer. However, MyIE2 redresses many of the shortcomings of Internet Explorer. MyIE2 includes such features as tabbed browsing, skinning, pop up blocking and the suppression of such things as ActiveX, Flash, scripting, Java and embedded sounds.

I used to have MyIE2 myself before I switched to using Mozilla exclusively. How people can stand to surf the web without tabs is something I never will understand. MyIE2's tabs made using Internet Explorer bearable. It also let me block all ActiveX as well as that obnoxious warning that Microsoft uses to force people to turn ActiveX back on.

MyIE2 bundles some interesting plugins. One plugin suppresses those stupid javascripts that disable the right-click action. It works with the Yahoo and Google Toolbars (although the Google Toolbar is not recommended for MyIE2 under Win 9. It also bundles a trial version of AI Roboform password manager, an adware-free alternative to the Gator/Claria password manager.

MyIE2 also includes support for the UCMore toolbar. This software used to be spyware, but they apparently have cleaned up their act. The updated UCMore software no longer tracks the user's web surfing as the older version did. (Source: Doxdesk)

With MyIE2, you can erase all your browsing information easily and automatically. You can clear your private information such as the browsing history, cookies and cache with a single click. You even can set MyIE2 to clear all your browsing information automatically when it closes.

Using MyIE2 is a great way to surf the internet. The only real drawback is that underneath it all, it is still buggy old Internet Explorer under the hood. Internet Explorer is dangerous and out of date. The page rendering engine displays many standard web design elements incorrectly and these flaws likely will never be corrected. It is also the tool of choice of malicious web sites that install spyware, dialers and browser hijackers.

Personally, I switch off between Opera and Mozilla Firebird as my main browser. I'll go several months with Opera as my browser, then I'll decide I like Firebird better and use that for several months.

Whatever you use when you surf the internet, plain old Internet Explorer should not be an option. There are better, safer and more up-to-date browsers out there.


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Windows 98 Put Out To Pasture
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Microsoft will retire Windows 98 next month and will stop supporting it. When you visit Windows Update on a Windows 98 computer, you will not be provided with updates. This means that new flaws discovered in Windows that effect 98 are unlikely to be patched.

Unfortunately, Windows 98 still runs on more home computers than any other version of any operating system. All those people will have no way to patch the many, many flaws in Windows as researchers discover them.

Now is the time to decide what you are going to do. If you are going to buy a new computer, this is perfect timing. Prices will drop pretty dramatically for new computers right after Christmas.

If you are planning to hold onto 98 for a while longer, you need to put it in order very quickly. My suggestion is that you format your hard drive and perform a clean install of 98, then create an image of the drive. This will allow you to keep a copy of 98 that is up-to-date with all of the bug fixes.

First, backup all of your documents. After everything has been saved, format your hard drive (this should be an option on the install CD). After Windows is running again, go to WindowsUpdates and install all of the updates. After all of the updates have been applied, run scandisk in thorough mode. After doing that, defrag the hard drive. This takes care of the hard drive and puts in a "clean" state.

Now you need to install some kind of disk image software. My preference is Acronis True Image. I use it on all of my own computers and it has saved me from more than one disaster. Click here and use this coupon code (SPYW-BFYH-WIN) and you can buy it for 10% off.

Tech writer Fred Langa prefers something called BootitNG. I haven't tried it myself, but it sounds like a very good piece of software. Langa gave it very high marks when he reviewed it. Another popular imaging program is Norton Ghost.

One imaging program I don't recommend is Powerquest's Drive Image. Earlier this year, my own copy of Drive Image refused to install because my new computer came preinstalled with Windows 2000 Server instead of 2000 Pro. Powerquest wanted to gouge me for over $500 for a server license, so I went elsewhere with my money. Langa didn't like it either, saying it was bloated, buggy crap (or something to that effect).

Once you have the imaging software installed, you need to create the first of three images of your hard drive. This first image saves a version of your computer that is just Windows plus the bug fixes. No third party software should be installed yet, with the exception of the drive imaging software and hardware drivers.

After creating the first image, you should reinstall all of your third-party software, such as Adobe or Photoshop or whatever. You also should change all the Windows settings you usually change. Once you've done that and you have Windows exactly as you like it, create your second image.

Burn these first two images either to a separate hard drive, CDR, Jazz disk or wherever you prefer. Keep in mind that CDRs will degrade after a couple of years even if you don't use them. Having these images will save you a load of trouble in the future. Windows will need reinstalling at some point and you will be very grateful that you have those images.

Although this is optional, I would suggest creating a third image about once a week or just before making major system changes. I do this on a regular basis and in fact I do it before testing out new spyware. I can install as much garbage on my computer as I want while testing and then later wipe them out without a trace.

The steps above should protect your system for the future. Please install a good firewall and a good antivirus to protect the rest of us from your system. A PC infected with a virus today harms more than just the owner of that one PC. This will be more likely to happen to you after support for 98 ends.

Sorry for being so long-winded with this. I didn't intend to write a novel. I do think it's important that Windows 98 users understand that all support is about to be cut off for their system. I would suggest upgrading to 2000 or XP, but if that is not possible, hopefully these instructions will help you squeeze a little more life out of your old workhorse.


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SpywareInfo Is Moving AGAIN
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I have bitten the bullet and paid my web host to prepare a new, more powerful server to host SpywareInfo. The new server will have a Pentium IV 2.6GHz hyperthreaded CPU and with an 800MHz front side bus, a full gig of RAM and dual 80 gig hard drives in a RAID array. If that doesn't hold me, nothing will.

As a matter of fact, the new server that I'm on now seems to have settled down a bit. The server has held up to the load pretty well since Friday. I don't know if they tweaked something or what, but the CPU usage has gone nowhere near where it was hovering that first week. It is still slow at the message boards, but it seems to be holding its own. The next server should have no problem.

We plan to move the web site tonight or tomorrow. It will mean yet another change of IP addresses. The message board will be unavailable to some people as DNS catches up at their ISPs. The site will still be there and the newsletter hopefully will be on time next week (for once).

Hopefully this move will be less traumatic than the last. At least the software will be the same this time. Last time, I spent several days tracking down php and perl scripts using the wrong server paths. I'm sure some of you saw a few of those pages before I fixed them.

I appreciate everyone who donated some money to help out with expenses. Those of you who sent emails asking for an address for mailing a check, I will answer you. I am still a couple of weeks behind in reading my email. I'm going to make a determined effort to empty that inbox this week. That "Empty Folder" option is looking mighty tempting lately.

Until next week...