Eyes On Spies Reprinted from PC World - May 2001 (pg. 146b) Here 's How to stop the three most common methods snoops use to monitor you on the Internet. Cookies The most familiar andmost widely adopted monitoring tool is the cookie. A cookie is a small data file - usually containing a unique indentification number - that your Web browser stores on your hard drive when a site sends it a certain command. Every time you request a page or item from the site, the server connects that request to your unique identifiation number, giving the company an exact record of what you viewed on its site. Some Web sites use the cookies to keep track of an online "shopping cart" ; others want to record every click you make at a site. Cookies aren't necessarily malicious, but they do let sites or advertisers make a click - by - click record of your surfing habbits. Cookies from ubiquitous ad servers like DoubleClick can track you on every site for which they serve ads. How to Defeat Cookies Sites use cookies for various reasons. If you completely disable them, many Web sites won't work the way you want them to. But you can limit the number of cookies your browser consumes. 1) Use Cookie Blockers : The free Cookiewall from AnalogX.com ( only works for Internet Explorer users at this time ) and the Guidescope from http://www.guidescope.com ( not sure what this product works with but I think it works for all browsers. ) for example, let you set cookie rules for each site you visit. 2) Periodically Clear your Cookie file : If you use Netscape, search for a file named cookies.txt and delete it. If you use Internet Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\ and C:\Windows\Cookies and delete the entire contents of both folders. Web Bugs Insidious and more difficult to fight than cookies, Web bugs are minute, invisable grapgics that load with a Web page. Because Web bugs behave like banner ads, they provide your computers unique IP address and the location of the page your looking at to the server that sends the bugs - but - because you do not see them, you never know they're there. Web bugs can also identify you by setting cookies and if you return to the same page later by retrieving them. How To Defeat Web Bugs. Web bugs are basically located in graphics files. If you disable image loading in your browser, you won't be bugged, but you won't see any other graphics, either - and that a trade-off most people aren't willing to make. But these tricky files can be fooled. 1) Stop Cookies first : Before you try to blck the Web bug itself from loading, you have to disable cookies. You can use the tools listed in the section above. If you use Intenret Explorer 5.5 you can use a beta tool that lets you block or allow cookies on a page by page basis. ( I looked for this tool and it appears it was removed from their site.) I suggest the Analogx tool listed above if you use IE. 2) Use Privacy-protecting Web Proxy software: Freedom ( from www.Zeroknowledge.com ), Internet Junkbuster ( from www.junkbuster.com ), and Guidescope (mentioned above ) are all forms of proxy software. They block your real IP address from loading the webpage first to their servers and then to your computer. The drawback: Using web proxies can slow your surfing. Spyware and Removal Tools. One thing often not mentioned is free and shareware programs that add in a bit of a bonus that you most likely do not want. I am talking about the practice of piggie backing a type of ad program or Internet use tracker in with the software. Most know about programs like Gator, and Aureate's offerings that add tracking on the web by the use of DLL files included within the install process of other programs. What many do not know is even in the case of many of these install routines that give you the option to not install the "free web enhancements" add them to your system anyway. Even setting them up to use part of your system resouces to do their dirty work. Removal of some of them will leave the freeware program in operative or at least crippled to some extent. So be aware of this before you proceed to go digging around to remove them. Many of them are stopped by a firewall that passes the Gibson Research site's "http://www.grc.com/LeakTest.exe" Leak Test program which you can freely download and test your firewall with for leaks. The next tool is to get a detection and removal tool for getting these DLL files off your system. By far the one that seems to work most effectly from what I can see is the http://www.lavasoftusa.com/downloads.html Ad-Aware 5.5 program ( about 840 kb free ) from the http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ LavaSoft Website Homepage and it seems to deal with most of the problem within a few minutes. I strongly suggest you consider it's use to remove the problems and free up some of your system resources and it is one of the best 850k of hard drive space you will use. You may also be interested in the "http://www.spychecker.com/" SpyChecker Adware/Spyware database which allows you to check a program before you download and install it for possbile known spyware routines. Again a Free service. It also has links for other removal tools if you are interested. Trojan Horses Trojan Horses present themselves to the victim as something worth possessing - such as a small game or an image file - to mask their true mission: to sneak into a PC and surreptitiously monitor, control, damage, or steal data. Trojan Horses themselves may not cause damage, but they let hackers or spies sift through your PC's files, disable virsus checking software, or even use your PC to mount a distributed denial - of - service attacks against another PC on the Internet. Legitimate sites typically do not use Trojan Horses. How To Defeat Trojan Houses 1) Use Antivirus Software : Most tools can detect nearly all Trojan Horses. To protect against emerging new ones, keep your virus definition files updated. 2) Maintain a Personal Firewall: A good firewall can protect you even if a Trojan Horse gets in. Software like www.zonelabs.com firewall, ZoneAlarm, can tell you if a program surreptitiously lets someone else view or control your PC's data. ( see the helps and links page for more information about firewalls and antivirus software. ) 3) Don't Open Attachments; Victims must allow the Trojan horse into their PC and activate it. Most Trojan horses arrive as an email attachment, so never open an EXE file until you know exactly what it does. Then scan the file with a currently updated anti-virus software anyway, before you run it. You may also wish to make sure you have the preview of attachments turned off on Microsoft Outlook Express or any mailer you may be using, as well as have your anti-virus software set up to scan your incoming email. Most of the current crop of anti-virus software will allow for this option. If you are using or receiving ZIP files by email you may also wish to check to make sure your antivirus software is set up to scan these also before they are opened. Some programs are not set up to do this by default, and you may need to set these functions on yourself. 4) If you do have a Trojan Horse : Some Anti-virus software detect but cannot remove Trojan Horses. Simply Super Software's Trojan Remover ( www.simplysup.com ) is designed to rid your PC of snak attackers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from PC World - May 2001 - Andrew Brandt , Author ( some additional comments added by the author of this page .)