How often do you check to see if you have spyware residing on your computer? I check once a month, and so far I’ve been pretty lucky — most of the spyware found is limited to tracking cookies we all pick up at various websites. But Earthlink, which has started a free scanning service
Privacy
Pop-ups for Good
By Tom Mighell on
Microsoft recognizes that most computer users really don’t pay attention to the company’s warnings about how to keep their PCs safe from spyware, viruses, and other bad stuff. That’s why future software releases will contain dialog boxes, warning messages, and offers to automatically configure security settings.
I know several of you out there will…
Big Brother knocking on the computer screen
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
The U.S. government is pressing the FCC to order Internet providers establish backdoors to allow easy wiretapping and keystroke logging.
The FDIC won’t ask for your financial info
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
That’s what the folks there want you to know, responding to a scam e-mail that purports to be from the FDIC, with an attachment that turns out to be a virus. If I got an e-mail from the FDIC, the first thing I would want to know is: how in the world did they…
Speaking of perils….
By Tom Mighell on
If you haven’t learned about the dangers of falling prey to a phishing scam, read this.
The latest Phishing Attack Trends Report (PDF File) shows that 282 attacks were reported in February, with the financial services industry continuing to be the most heavily targeted.
How seriously do YOU take privacy?
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
With a title that makes you want to say “duh,” Study: Identity Theft Worries Consumers reports that despite an increased awareness about the need to protect privacy online, consumers do a consistently poor job of managing their passwords.
Oops
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
The folks over at the SCO group must not be aware of the dangers of leaving metadata in its documents. In a Word document recovered from the company, the hidden metadata revealed that SCO originally planned to sue Bank of America, not Daimler-Chrysler.
What you can do to stop hijacking
By Tom Mighell on
Browser hijacking, that is. When you’re surfing the Internet willy-nilly, it can sometimes be easy to pick up some unwanted guests that take over your web browser, changing your home page, throwing pop-ups at you left and right, and exposing you to unwanted pr0n. As I have mentioned before, use one of the spyware…
Spyware: the government finally gets involved
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
Last week, Congress introduced legislation aimed at stopping spyware. Not to be left behind, several states are also getting into the act, including Utah, which passed the first state spyware bill.
Shocking headline of the day
By Tom Mighell on
Posted in Privacy
A study of Internet user habits finds that pop-up ads often resulted in users having a negative image of the advertiser. The study showed that users close pop-up ads within 2.5 seconds of opening them. The name of the company conducting the study — Bunnyfoot Universality — had me chuckling. Sounds like the random…