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Everyday more and more computers are becoming infected with Spyware and Adware (advertising tracking). No matter where you go on the web, someone is trying to sneak something on your computer. From honest web sites placing simple logon cookies, to paid advertising tracking your movements on the web, to malicious software that is designed to record your keystrokes and discover your passwords, Spyware and Adware have together become the web’s number one problem.

Many of these programs are down right dangerous and seriously threaten your online privacy and identity. But even the simple and supposedly benign Adware programs can cause you serious problems.

Spyware is any program that installs itself onto your computer with the intent to spy on your activity. This can be recording your online searching habits, or whatever you type on your keyboard. Adware is not much better. It is designed to watch what you do online, where you go, which terms you search for and then report this to the ad agency that runs the adware program.

Adware programs may be designed with the best intentions in mind, but even these can cause your computer serious problems.

Here is what happens. Many, if not most, advertisers on the internet will try and place a cookie or other small program on your computer. Many will add code that will track that cookie as it hits different pages. The code may be designed simply to gather anonymous data, or it may be trying to send ads to your browser that the advertising company thinks you will be more likely to respond to.

Whatever the case, the Adware or Spyware is using your computer to do its tracking. This means that part of your computer’s power and CPU cycles are being diverted away from the activity you are trying to perform. Your computer is being used by someone else instead to track your movements. Now, when we multiply this behavior by tens or hundreds of Adware or Spyware programs all trying to use your computer for their work you can begin to see the problem.

These programs can literally slow your computer down to a crawl, or make it crash altogether. They can fill your computer up with trash files, open unwanted popup windows, use up the space in your internet cache and generally just make working on your computer a nightmare.

Luckily there are several easy solutions to the problem. But first let me make one distinction, Spyware and Adware are not the same thing as a computer virus. Although a computer virus can install spyware on a computer, you will need different tools to remove a computer virus and to keep your system clean from Spyware and Adware. You should be using both a high quality commercial anti-virus program and one or more good quality programs for handling the spyware/adware problem.

There are several good Spyware/adware programs on the market. I use two different programs on my network, Ad-aware from Lavasoft and Spy Sweeper from Webroot Software although there are several others. You can easily find both of these by doing an internet search for Ad-aware and Spy Sweeper. Or simply do a search for spyware. Both of these programs will scan your hard drives and registry and present you with a list of spyware/adware programs hiding on your system. You can then quarantine or remove the offending programs. I use both of these programs since neither one seems to catch everything. Plus I will run them 2 or more times in a row, the nastier spyware will not be completely removed on the first pass.

The process is very easy and I recommend running these programs at least once a week and every time you have been doing some extended web surfing. You will be surprised at how many of these spyware/adware programs will sneak onto your system. I run a very clean network and I have yet to scan my system and not come up with at least a few of these hiding on my hard drive.

So be aware of the problem, take reasonable precautions, scan your system frequently, and the spyware/adware curse can be broken.

George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur, Internet Trainer and author of over 30 multimedia based tutorial training titles. Read more
articles by George Peirson at http://www.howtogurus.com/free-articles.html
Article copyright 2005 George Peirson

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Spam is one of the curses of the Internet age. But if the clogging of mail boxes with useless emails was bad enough, unsolicited emails aimed at tricking you into giving your valuable passwords, banking and PIN numbers is the most dangerous variety of email that you will ever encounter. This kind of email is known as “phishing” because the unscrupulous authors of these messages are fishing for valuable information which they can use to capture your online identity.

If you think that you won’t be fooled by such tricks, think again. Phishers commonly send emails which look like they come from respected financial institutions, such as PayPal, Visa, Ebay, America Online. The messages spoof the email address of the institutions and the letters have the proper logos and everything. They look real. The subject message usually has a dire warning: “Your Pay Pal Account (or Ebay, or online bank account) has been suspended.” “Warning: Confirm Your Online Banking Account.” These messages look so real, that 5% of recipients respond to them

Naturally if you have a good amount of money in your PayPal or online banking account, you are going to panic when you receive email like this. The first thing to do is to stay calm. Remember, responsible institutions will never suddenly suspend your account or ask you to give personal information in an insecure manner.

Usually the phishing emails will ask you to enter new information for your account and they will give you urls, asking you to click through and log into your account. The urls in the email will look like the log-in addresses for these institutions, but if you put your mouse over them you will see that the actual web address is different.

If you get any email of this type the second rule is never, never click through and try to log in. If you log in with your user name and password, then phishers have captured your password. If you go on to fill out other information such as: bank account numbers, social security number, mother’s maiden name or driver’s license number then the fraudsters will really have you.

If you are worried about your online account and want to see if it is OK. Then go to the home page of PayPal, Ebay or your bank, and log into your account in the customary way using the usual url, such as https://www.paypal.com rather than with the url in the suspectt email. When you get into your account you will probably see that everything is normal. If your institution indeed has a message for you, you will find it in that safe environment without compromising your security. If you are still in doubt, call up your institution using their toll free customer service numbers.

PayPal also has a security section where they tell you what to look for in fraudulent emails. For example, whenever PayPal sends you an email it will always start off with “Dear Donald Nelson,” in my case, or whatever name you used when you signed up. They will not say “Dear Valued Paypal customer.” So log into the proper areas of your institution and learn as much as you can about security procedures.

The third thing to do is to report suspicious email . We have to put these crooks out of business, and that can only happen if we report fraud whenever we see it. You can get quick service from PayPal by forwarding email of this type to spoof@paypal.com. Usually within an hour you will get a reply telling you whether the email comes from PayPal or not. For other instances of Phishing, you can report them to the Anti Phishing Working Group at www.antiphishing.org. This website, staffed by volunteers, has up to date information about the latest scams and is doing its best to make the Internet safer for us.

Finally, if you have given any information to fraudulent websites move swiftly to protect yourself.

Notify your bank, change your passwords for online accounts, and watch your online accounts for any signs of unusual activity. A good guide with useful and detailed information on what to do if you have given out valuable information can be found at http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs2.html

So, enjoy the Internet but take precautions and protect yourself from any devious phishing message which may land in your mail box.

Copyright 2004

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been
working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization,
http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization,
copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He
publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at
http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html

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By taking responsibility for your children’s online activities, parents can greatly minimize any potential risks. In today’s electronic age teaching your children about online safety is a must. Even if you think your child does not have access to the internet, these rules are important because internet access is everywhere!

1. Never give out identifying information: address, school name, or telephone number.

2. Get to know the websites your child uses. Have your child show you what he or she does online.

3. Never allow a child to arrange a face-to-face meeting with another computer user. If a meeting is arranged, make it in a public place, and accompany your child.

4. Never respond to messages that are suggestive, obscene, or make you feel uncomfortable. Encourage your child to tell you if he/she encounter such messages.

5. Set rules and guidelines for internet use by your children.

6. Monitor your children’s compliance with your rules.

7. Learn more about out blocking, filtering, and content ratings.

8. Consider keeping the computer in a family room rather than the child’s bedroom.

9. Get to know your child’s online friends, just as you would all of their other friends.

10. Post these rules near the computer as a reminder.

Find more rules located at http://www.myfirstbra.us/online_safety_for_girls.htm.

Kim Shire

MyFirstBra.us is a helpful guide for preteen, teens, and parents concerning training bras, and issues surrounding puberty & breast development, in young girls ages 8-16.

MyFirstBra.us is a community project of National Webworks. All authors are from National Webworks, Volunteers, or Contracted for research and writing.

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