For anyone, esp those on cable, you might want to check your computer for this "silent runner". My computer had 22 occurances of it. Now my cable modem is "quiet" when I'm not surfing. It's free right now!!
I've also found his WEB site great for testing your cable connection to see if your computer is accessible to the Internet!
You might want to send this to your friends. - regards
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Announcing my NEW freeware: " OptOut "
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Internet Privacy:
OptOut?
Several weeks ago a scare swept through the Internet community regarding alleged Internet "spying" being done by a very popular advertising system known as "Aureate" (now renamed to "Radiate".) Since the Aureate system is "carried" into the user's PC by more than 400 popular freeware programs (like Go!Zilla, GetRight, CuteFTP, and others), and is currently installed and running in over TWENTY-TWO MILLION PC's!!, the threat that this software was "spying" on its users was of great and immediate concern.
My initial analysis of the Aureate system revealed that MUCH of what had been claimed was completely unfounded. However, that analysis DID raise enough concern and questions that I decided to look further...
What I discovered was that this system WAS secretly running as a "parasite" on your Netscape or Microsoft web browser, using your browser's Internet connection to communicate with Aureate servers in the background without the user's knowledge or explicit permission! This meant that the Aureate software was running and communicating over the Internet even when the hosting "carrier" freeware, which brought it into the system, was not running! This browser "parasite" had also been implicated in frequent crashes of those browsers. And even after the "freeware" which brought this parasitic software into the user's machine had been completely removed, THE
AUREATE SYSTEM REMAINED INSTALLED AND OPERATING SECRETLY!
This was not okay.
A reading of Aureate's developer web site shows that the freeware authors are receiving payment from the advertisers in direct proportion to the number of advertisements actually viewed and the length of time they are shown. In order to do this, the actaul use of the various programs MUST be monitored and reported back to Aureate.
This bothered me too.
So ... since I already knew of other similar sounding problems with "Adbots" being secretly installed in user's machines (The ZoneAlarm firewall discovered a different one running in my own machine!), I decided to create an easy-to-use tool to check for the presence of known "baddies" and -- optionally -- remove them from the computer for the user.
The program is called "OptOut" because it allows users to "opt out" of the use of unwanted advertising software on their machines.
I wrote it in 100% assembly language over the past two weeks, it's a nifty little 32K bytes in size ... and the "Preview Release" is ready for you to use right now!
Please see the new "OptOut" page on the grc.com web site for more information and news about Aureate and OptOut. You can download it from there too...
<a href= "http://grc.com/optout.htm" >Our OptOut Site</a>
ZoneAlarm Update:
The FREE ZoneAlarm firewall is evolving nicely and I expect tosoon be able to recommend it without reservation. Version 2.1 is currently in beta testing, and is really working VERY well.
It adds the significant new feature of "event logging" so that a record of blocked Internet traffic is preserved.
ZoneLabs has given me permission to point you to their version 2.1 beta page, where you can download and experiment with this very nicely developing free personal firewall:
<a href= "http://www.zonelabs.com/beta_download.htm" >ZA Beta</a>
My Current Internet Security/Privacy Project:
As you might have guessed, my work on the new OptOut freeware has diverted my attention away from work on the hyper-speed port scanner. I will be working on the new OptOut web site for a while, and enhancing the OptOut program to detect and remove several other known "spyware" systems. Once OptOut is firmly in place, I plan to return to work on the hyper-speed port scanner. |
