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Computers: SPAM doesn’t taste very nice!
Spyware – an update
In the June 2002 issue of SILICON CHIP we presented a feature on computer
security – keeping out the bad guys (hackers) with a firewall. On the last
page of that feature was a panel which mentioned “spyware” – programs
which, as their name suggests, spy on your computer operation and send
valuable information about you to marketing organisations, which then
return the favour by spamming you with “special offers”.
S
pyware is insidious. While there
are many invasions of your privacy these days, in most cases
you can do something about them. At
least most don’t cost you money. But
once your computer is infected with
spyware, you probably won’t even be
aware that you are being spied on. And
it does cost you actual dollars!
All this came home to me recently
when at a mate’s place. Knowing I
“have something to do with computers”(!) he made the comment to me
that he was going to have to buy a
new computer for the kids because
the current one was just too old, too
slow.
I asked him what it was “A Pentium II 600,” he replied. “What?” I
said. “That’s still a quite powerful
machine even by today’s standards,”
(the current top-of-the-line machines
are 2+GHz.) I told him SILICON CHIP
is produced on 600MHz Pentium II
machines!
“Well, look at this,” he said. He
powered the computer up – which, I
noted, took much longer than I would
have expected. Even the virus checker
seemed to bog down – without finding
anything. I glanced at the taskbar and
there were three or four applications
running that probably didn’t need to
be there. But then he tried to log onto
the internet via Optusnet.
From clicking “connect” (ie, starting
the dial-out procedure) to being able
to do anything on Optusnet’s home
page took about four minutes. I had to
agree, that was very slow. But in the
meantime the modem was going mad.
Bulk data was moving somewhere!
And once on, logging on to any new
pages or sites seemed also painfully
slow. I asked him if he wanted it fixed.
Is the Pope a Catholic?
First thing I did was had a look at
the hard disk – a good size, 10GB, but
almost full (just a couple of hundred
megabytes free). But there was nothing
obvious taking up such bulk space.
So I then searched for any .tmp files
which had been left behind. <startsearch for files or folders-*.tmp> There
were only a “few” – 583 to be exact,
totalling almost 1GB.
It didn’t take long to delete all those,
then I started asking questions. The
computer was used by three teenage
children. “How do you turn the computer off?” I asked, The two older girls
said “by using start/shutdown”. The
boy was unusually quiet – but one
of the girls dobbed him in. “He just
switches it off at the power point.
We’ve tried to tell him that’s wrong
but he won’t listen”.
I hope he’ll listen now!
Then it was time to tackle the slow
internet connection. I downloaded
Adaware (from www.lavasoftusa
.com) and then ran it. 258 suspect
files found! While Adaware was deleting them for me, it was back to the
kids. Again No 2 daughter spilled the
beans on her brother. “He downloads
anything and everything off the net.
You name it, he downloads it”.
Now this kid is a real menace (they
should have called him Dennis). If
it can be blown up, crashed, broken,
dismantled . . . he’ll do it. The best time
the family had was when he broke his
arm and was in plaster for eight weeks.
He’s that sort of kid.
I tried, as calmly as I could, to
explain the dangers of downloading
stuff from the net. “Unless the source
is trusted, you’re likely to get all sorts
of things invading your computer,” I
said. “I’ll bet you get dozens of spam
emails a day.”
“Oh, sometimes its hundreds,” said
No 2 daughter. “Is that why we keep
getting ads for porn sites and casinos
popping up?” asked No 1 daughter.
“Porn?” asked mate’s wife, now
showing obvious concern at what her
kids were being subjected to. “Can’t
you stop that happening?”
I showed them how to block senders
in Outlook Express but informed them
that this wouldn’t stop all the spammers. “Now they have your email addresses, you’re targeted. They change
their names, often just slightly, almost
every day, so your blocking filter won’t
catch them.
“Look, I’ve been caught too.” I
explained how the other day I had
a spam email come through similar
to one I’d previously blocked. When
I examined its properties, included
were the words “bounce” and “block
filter”. The spam factory knew that
I had blocked their email and had
bounced it, so it was automatically
assigned a new name to get through.
They are that determined.
And only yesterday I discovered
OO
38 Silicon Chip
www.siliconchip.com.au
O
By Ross Tester
yet another spin on spam. I received
yet another unbelievably generous
offer of something-or-other I didn’t
want from the good ol’ USA. Not only
would I never take advantage of the
offer, I could never take advantage of
it because it was “open to residents
of the USA and Canada only” (they’re
really clever, these Yanks, spamming
the whole world with useless garbage
applicable to America only!).
But when I tried to block it, I found
that they had put my email address in
it as their own source address. So there
was nothing I could block! As I said,
spammers are determined.
So we looked at the spam and put
blocks on as many domains and ad-
dresses as we could – at least that will
slow the spammers down a little. Then
I removed some of those programs
from the startup menu that were clogging up the works.
Finally, I used a handy shareware
utility called treesize.pro which gives
a graphical and detailed report on
what is taking up the space on the
hard disk. Sure enough, most of it was
his downloaded games (among other
things!). And in many instances, multiple installations of the same game in
different directories.
It didn’t take long to uninstall
(where required) through the control
panel and delete multiple installs.
Finally, I rebooted the machine.
I was happy to find that it booted
significantly faster and even happier to
note that instead of the several minutes
that it took to log onto the net, it was
now only about 20 seconds including
the dial-out.
My mate was impressed, I have to
say. No need for that new computer!
Once again, I tried to explain how
to use the ’net and, more importantly,
what not to do. But I’m fairly certain
the kid wasn’t listening. He was more
interested in the fact that I’d cleaned
out hard disk space.
There was this gleam in his eye and
I’m sure he was thinking about what he
could download into that 5GB when
SC
I had gone. . .
What should YOU do about spam?
Spammers cost YOU money. Every time you receive an unwanted email, you are paying for the
download – in time, in your download allowance, etc. Do something about it. There’s a rather
un-genteel acronym: “GOYA” (the first three words are get off yer . . . .). Well, do it! Spammers
won’t be stopped unless enough people act.
(a) NEVER NEVER NEVER take advantage of the
spammer’s most generous offer to remove or unsubscribe
you from their list. All that does is confirm that your email
address is correct and that you are reading your emails.
You’ll be bombarded with more spam.
(b) Apply a block to the spammer’s URL if it is one
of the generic spammers (ie, someone<at>spammer’s
name.com). Don't simply apply the block to the spammer’s email address because they will simply change
some part of their email address to get past your
block.
If the spammer is, say, someone<at>hotmail.com or one
of the other public email organisations, block the email
address and not the URL otherwise you won’t get any
more emails from anyone else using that service!
If you’re using Outlook Express (the world’s most-used
email program) you’ll find the block filter under MESSAGE – BLOCK SENDER. You can also apply a block
to newsgroups to block those pests who like the look of
their own name in print and continually fill up newsgroups
with garbage, much of which could be defamatory if they
weren’t hiding behind aliases!
Incidentally, most public email services such as Hotwww.siliconchip.com.au
mail have their own spam blockers built it. Use them!
(c) Complain, complain, complain. Some of Australia’s
largest ISPs are also some of the world’s worst when it
comes to spamming. You and I have to continually bombard them with the only thing they understand – lots of
email messages to their complaints department, about
them not filtering out spam.
Many will simply ignore these emails but if enough
people start sending enough complaint emails, it will
start costing them money by clogging up their systems.
Then they might then sit up and take notice.
(d) Complain to your local member of Parliament and
to the Minister for Telecommunications. Governments do
have the power to do something about spammers; like
most things though they need a bit of a kick along to get
them to do anything.
(e) Change email servers or even ISPs – and tell the
old one why you are changing. Nothing speaks louder
than lost revenue.
(f) Join one of the anti-spam organisations. Google
“spam block” or similar and you’ll find several organisations who are fighting the fight against the spammers.
Help them to help you!
September 2002 39
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