Editorial
Watch Your Back
When Microsoft first launched Windows 95 and offered access to what was to be its global communications network -- MSN, people were worried that during the 20 minutes or so it took for your computer to register with the system, too much private information about exactly what was on your PC may have been transmitted.

Microsoft denied any covert information gathering -- as they did later when online registration for its products became available through the Internet.

Then of course there was the privacy scare over the embedded serial numbers in Intel's Pentium III processors, the recent discovery that the Real Media Player and Jukebox programs were covertly telling others about what you listen and watch on the Net -- and today a new privacy hole has been uncovered.

A free animated cursor program for Windows, distributed by Comet Systems Inc in the USA has been caught sending information about your Net surfing habits back to home-base.

It seems that blatant products such as Back Orifice may pose nowhere near the privacy risk that a raft of seemingly innocuous, and some times mainstream programs do.

Net users should remember at all times that it is extremely easy for any programmer to embed "spy code" into their software -- and, it seems, many do.

The BBC carried a report this week in which it demonstrated one such piece of spy code that was embedded into a copy of the dancing baby screen-saver. This code used your PC's microphone to covertly record conversations in the immediate vicinity and then send them back, through the Net, to an eavesdropper's email account.

I suspect that it won't be long before most virus scanners begin including code that monitors your PC's Internet connection to look for unauthorised sessions with remote machines in an attempt to catch such cyber-spying.

In the meantime most Net surfers will be on their own -- at the mercy of any and every software vendor who may feel inclined to keep an eye on what you're doing on the Net.

If you want to be vigilant I suggest you use an external modem and place it where you can keep an eye on the TD and RD lights. If, while online, you notice any unexpected activity, you might want to open a DOS window (or a unix shell) and use the netstat program to see who your computer is talking to.

The command netstat with no parameters will give you a quick list of any active connections between your computer and another.

The command netstat -a will include far more information, including what your machine is listening for across the Net.

There are also many other utilities available from various sources on the Net, although most of these are not set up to monitor for the activities of spy code embedded in other software -- they're mainly oriented at detecting attempts to access your machine from other locations on the Net.

In the meantime .. be careful out there and treat all software with caution, even if it's from an otherwise reputable source such as Real Networks or Microsoft.

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