Speaking of security breaches, was discussing the Hotmail problem w/ a friend last night, and he is an accountant who had hired a young guy to help him out during tax season; the guy turned out to be a hacker who was annoyed at a woman. The hacker sent her a Trojan w/ Back Orifice in it; she didn't know; it got onto her computer; he had a cable modem that was always on, and notified him when she got onto her computer; he jumped up and went to his computer, did whatever was necessary (I don't know a lot about Back Orifice) and then went through her entire computer. My friend was there at the time and said he asked, "What are you going to do, wipe out her hard drive?" The hacker laughed and said, "That would be too simple." My friend found this perturbing to say the least.
My friend advised me to continually update my OS via Microsoft's website, for possible security breaches. I also went onto the web to research Back Orifice, as one can protect against it (though I don't know what happens if you have WIndows 2000). It's clear that although this Hotmail breach was widespread and provides bad PR, that security is a huge issue--I mean, after all, the Fed is going to have the right to monitor all computers and cellphones etc--
There is a program called AtGuard which I use, it cost $30 to purchase, and blocks cookies, ads, and one can create one's own firewalls. If you don't selectively block cookies, there will be a traceable trail of everywhere you've gone on the web. Sites use it for marketing pruposes and who knows what else. When I went onto the new SI it wouldn't work, and I finally figured out it was because I had my cookies blocked. The new SI therefore won't function unless you enable cookies, which means they can keep track of the various threads/pages you use. |
