The limits of unethical business... there's no limit!It seems that, as the hype decreases regarding ads, online advertisement, supposed free programs with banners at the top and people find their way to protect themselves from most common types of privacy and security threats, the spammers, scammers and other net bandits create newer and more ingenious ways to harvest money from anyone, at any cost. A while ago, our ever money seeker MS wanted to include a feature in IE, smart tags, that would allow virtually any word in a web page to be highlighted and converted into an hyperlink to a URL taken from a database of links probably controlled by MS or whatever company wanted to drive that business. MS took so many flack from privacy supporters that the feature didn't appear in IE6. However, other companies felt they could do what MS decided not to do (for now) and took the lead with their own solutions. This should give you a good idea how this hack is expected to work: http://scumware.com/wm1.html This explains the title of this page. Would you ever consider this practice fair, ethical, respectful of the user's legit right to see the real content of a page, without an additional layer of crud? What if those automatic URLs are imposed over your URLs so your web visitors are taken to whatever site pays the immoral company that created those programs? This site (my "unofficial IB" site) doesn't trade links with anyone neither has pay-per-click agreements with anyone, so I'm not concerned for lack of revenue. However, why would I want that my pages are converted in a giant hyperlink, where each word is linked to whatever the company paying for that link wants? What if my link to other of my free tech pages is overwritten with a link to a company selling you a book to become a master spammer, to a company selling you a device to cheat the cable company, etc? Not all users are aware of what's happening. Hence, not all users realize this is third party program, kind of IE's parasite that they installed themselves automatically in their browser (and without notice) in the past with some supposedly free program. No surprise, most untrained users would think it's me and my site that has all those URLs to whatever kind of totally unrelated or simple illegal links. People hold that technology per se is not good nor bad, but simply neutral. It's to the person or company that employs that technology to make good or bad use of it. Maybe. It's a philosophical discussion that could take years without settlement. Certainly, the same JavaScript technology that allows some technical site to be more educative can enable a rogue site to make you a lot of damage thanks to a lot of security breaches in internet browsers, particularly IE (not that I'm trying to imply the others are attack-proof, it's only that IE failures get more press attention). However, what can be said of a program made specially to stealth traffic from honest sites and that's installed without warning, using a free program's installation that piggybacks it and configures it under the scenes? I think it's a bandit program by design. For years, I've contributed my small grain of salt to SPAM fighting and scam discovery, but maybe the time has come to devote some pages to the biggest scandal on the net, namely how millions of untrained and naive users are tracked, fooled, spied and even their computers are remotely controlled by people that have a great business on it or simply enjoy causing damage. And believe me, most IT people that I've met are as unaware of the threats as the most computer-illiterate person is. I wasn't born knowing all security issues in the net. I had to learn and after 10 years, I'm still learning the basics. I don't work as a security expert. But I believe that anyone can have a basic understanding on the main issues. If you don't care at all what happens in your computer, okay, be that your decision. But ideally, it should be your decision after knowing what's happening, so you can say with justice that you don't care. Did you enjoy downloading that free program that allows you to share music illegally on the net, so denying the authors the right to get a revenue? Did you drool while downloading that program that shows a nude woman dancing in your desktop? Do you use real player? Do you have an idea what aureate-radiate is? How many times you evaluated the possibility to install that cracked program that would have cost maybe only $20 to become a registered and legal user instead? Do you know what those funny programs do or can do? Did you happen to hear the term spyware sometimes? Have you seen the source of any web page created by that company that you trust and that publishes reviews of HW and SW for free? There are sites that maintain a large database of freeware and shareware descriptions and can tell you if the program contains spyware or not with simply typing the name in an input field. There are free and cheap personal firewalls. Most of them but one do the basic trick, just be sure not to purchase the only one that seems scam. Don't click on every link you see. Tell your browser to show the real URL of an hyperlink, not the "friendly" one that may be anything. If you have an AV program, keep its virus definitions updated. If you have a corporate AV with a central repository that feeds the desktops, ask if the central repository is being updated. There are free programs that scan for spyware and remove it from your system. Don't download every executable that you can find. When in doubt, visit forums of people that care and ask! Don't use the defaults of your personal firewall if you can; customize it instead. Don't install any and every feature of your web browser if you don't need it. Try to install all recommended security updates for your favorite web browser. Do you wonder why you get SPAM? Heck, almost anybody gets some spam, but simply put, don't give your email address in any place it's asked and mangle your email in the newsgroups with some word like NOSPAM if you can post with a fake address! Do you know that your web browser could be giving your email automatically when you visit a web page? Do you know what the "referrer" tag is and that your browser sends it by default? Do you read the privacy policy in at least a few of the sites you visit most and where you are asked to create an account and log in? When I first created my site, I had a counter in it. I did that because I wanted to know if people visited the site. Otherwise, creating a free site that nobody uses is going to be a total waste of time. Although I didn't observe great traffic, it was enough to keep me adding more information from time to time. However, when I realized that most innocent web counters offered in the net by several companies act at the same time as trackers, I stopped using them, unless in the future I can put a custom counter on my own that only counts and doesn't depend on a third party. I could rant for hours about the many common techniques that are used daily to squeeze and stretch your machine to get information on your steps on the net. New techniques are invented quickly to circumvent the security features that personal firewalls offer. I won't go to the extreme of saying that nothing generic can be tracked and anything is malign, but if a sniffer or logger is going to be installed surreptitiously in your machine by a program advertised as freeware, you should be informed beforehand at least. I will provide more concrete information in the future. |
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This page was last updated on 2002-01-01 18:09:07 |