This is a security matter that all internet users should be aware of and concerns the activities of a company called aureate.com which has installed spy software in possibly millions of computers. This software allows it to monitor users activities on the internet without the knowledge of those users. There have been rumours about this for a number of weeks at various forums on the web and it now looks like there is a substantial amount of truth in them. The spy software is installed by programs such as Go!Zilla, CuteFTP 3.0 and many others, often available as free downloads or in magazine software tryouts. The activities of the spy software have been described by some as most closely resembling a Trojan Horse. For full information on this go to www.nls.net or go directly to the page: http://www.nls.net/netlink_has_learned_of_an_activi.htm and: http://federalcourts.com/federalcourt/News/lostincyberspace_feb242000.html It is impossible to manually get rid of the offending dll.s, however a security specialist, the Gibson Research Corporation (http://grc.com/), has developed an application called OptOut that will detect and remove them. (note that in some cases using OptOut and getting rid of the offending dll.s will disable the program as well) go here for this: http://grc.com/optout.htm I hope no one minds me posting this information here but I feel it is important and could not think where else it should go. STORM

heya; yeah! also the grc guy has some cool tips on internet security, and reviews of firewall software. i got zonealarm 2, and it is very nice to work with! :) (this is for windows and internet (in)security in that particular os.)

I also went to his internet security site it's a real eye opener.

Since not everyone is probably going to plough through the long page links I listed above here is a small sample of what just one of the dozen or so dll.s aureate installs on your computer does. Bear in mind that investigators are still trying to establish fully what this one and the others do. "advert.dll" This DLL creates a hidden window every time you open your browser. It creates and sends 4 pages of information to the Aureate servers using port 1749 on your system, these pages include: 1. Your name as listed in the system registry (not the name you installed one of the programs with) 2. Your IP address 3. The reverse DNS match of your address. ( tells them what ISP and area of country you are in) 4. A listing of ALL software that is shown in your registry as being installed. (Not just the companies they work with) 5. This DLL sends the following information to their server on all URL's you visit: A.) ad banners you may click on B.) all downloads you do showing the filename/file size/date/time/type of file(image, zip,executable, etc) C.) full time and date stamps of all your actions while using your browser D.) the remote dialup number you are dialing in on (taken out of your dialer configuration) E.) dialup password if saved, does not "appear" at first glance to send this through to them. 6. Contains programmers note: "Show me the money! I want to be Mike!" There are also serious worries that these dll.s may allow aureate or hackers to remotly controll your computer. Makes you wonder if this is an isolated case or just the tip of the iceberg?

Trying not to be too paranoid, but it's probably the tip of the iceberg. Go read Orwell's "1984" again, then think about today's move to merge the computer and TV, throw in stuff like aureate (now known as "Radiate"), and you can't help but wonder what other things like this might be out there (surely the government isn't ignorant of this technology). Personally, I have nothing to hide related to my internet activity, but I don't like others anonamously spying on me and collecting information for which they do not have my permission (much less my prior knowledge). I used grc's "optout" and found that I had a number of aureate-type "spy files" working in the background on my system, including from a program that I once thought was a blessing - "GetRight", the popular file downloading facilitator. I have since removed all such programs. I note that many mainstream e-commerce houses are offering to attach similar "download facilitator" files to their online product downloads. Makes you wonder about them too. I guess Big Brother probably could be (is?) watching us afterall. Sad. Very sad. The Internet, the very medium that was supposed to bring freedom of communication to the masses, may turn out to be the ultimate slavekeeper of personal freedoms. And like many evils fostered on society, it was all done initially with the best and most innocent of intentions (i.e., for Radiate, the sincere goal of gathering useful demographic information for advetrisers).

I DL'ed it too, and I had no spy type things on my system (yea), but i did DL, and am now using the Zonealarm 2 Firewall, which is an awsome looking prog (and free to boot!) -Trav

I don't know if anyone else has ever heard of this but I'm sure someone else has heard it on the news or read about it somewhere besides me?? When the Pentium III came out there was a lot of contraversy surrounding the implementation of some kind of reading or tracking device that was supposed to have been fused into all the chips that would enable Microsoft and Intel and "whoever" to know what kind of software you use and where you go on the net etc,....bla, bla, bla.... Apparently they changed their tune when consumers cried about it and said they wouldn't by it, but I'm NOT really sure?? There has been rumours for years that Microsoft scans the hard drives of all the folks that visit and download from their sites. I have been told by experts that this is quite IMPOSSIBLE for various reasons. Gozilla has been around for quite some time, it's nothing new. If your concerned about that your too late, like by a few years. By now folks probably already know everything and anything about you; and even if they didn't have this, if someone wants to find out about you, they will; hackers have ways around everything!!! I know such a person, he just recently got a job for the Government cause they felt he should be on their side, he was constantly getting into banks and all kinds of security places, hehehe, and he did it so damn easily and FAST!!! He used to kill me cause he had the mind of a child with other things, like he would watch cartoons on Saturday morning and play games galore, couldn't even drive a car!!! But he could hack his way into Fort Knox!!! Hahahahaha!! Now he's laughing with a job to die for! ;-)

They say Einstien could NEVER tie his shoe laces!! Couldn't figure it out??? ;-)

Hey, whats wrong with cartoons? Its the only TV besides Wrestling I can stand anymore. Long live Cartoon Network!

Go Scooby Doo, hehehe ;-)

:) Its like modern age meditation, tune in and turn your brain off :)

I'm waiting week by week until the same happens on Macs. The sad news is that it can be done already even without an (illegal) spy app, and on every platform. Everyone I know doesn't care about cookies - at least some turned them off in the first week (and failed to visit most sites), then set it to "ask" (and got asked every 2 seconds) and finally turned them "on". All of those banner-ad companies try to place permanent cookies with an id on your computer. Once it is set, they will know every single webpage (with their banner) you load, with date and time. Now they started to buy eCommerce companies, and those got cookies with id's as well. But they also have your name and address and credit card. It takes them less than a day to synchronize the id's (they also have your temporary IP code - just one single page with both id's, once in all past years, and they got you. And by the way, what about the browsers? If someone gives you a free TV, you can not only be sure that it will force you to watch adverts, it will certainly also film and record you and send it back to the nice uncle who gave it for free. There will probably be no real cure for all this, but there is one thing that I just love to support in public. On Mac there will be a new browser called iCab - from an unknown german company - Mac only - to be sold, for money...! Each of this rated them "brain dead" in most magazines when they started, but the mags went a bit more silent in this respect with every new public beta. Because they will get payed by you to protect you, and not by the business to expose you, they can do very naughty things, like - telling servers that cookies got accepted permanently, and then trashing them - filtering in/out cookies, banners, pictures, plugins, java/script site by site - supporting both IE and NN html at the same time - pretending to be a different browser of your choice, etc. etc. Just one example: turn on javascript for your forum, but off for everything else. Load the forum without restrictions, follow a link to a private site - no more popup window terror! Before you shuffle your feet,... it is still under construction, and the public beta is not really fit for the real world yet - but it is already fun to see what (hopefully) will be possible sometimes soon. I also seriously hope that there will be a Wintel version (or similar project by someone else) for the sake of everyone who accepts the commercial world, but no criminal activity by them... Information and free beta at: http://www.iCab.de Give it a try, MartinC

WOW, 2000 gets more like 1984 every day :) Thanks for bringing this to my attention, you can be sure I've downloaded OptOut and will be checking my computer ASAP. And Martin, if iCab does become available for the PC, please be sure to let us know Paul

Thanks for the news, just heard the same info from a PBS radio report on the way home from work. Moral of the story inferred that "we need the Goverment to regulate the internet to avoide these problems". DON'T buy into it folks, the last thing we need is more regulations and restrictions on the few freedoms we do have left! When a company comes-up with a good anti-spy program buy it, use it and support it. If you really care about your info then You protect it.

I use PKzip and download accelerator, both of which use this stuff. I don't care. I could give a shit who knows what i do on the computer or the net. However, all you have to do is rename the DLL. of course, the programs that use it will then stop working, but hey, ya gets what ya pay for. What concerns me more is Microsoft's proprietary software that can only be installed on a specific machine, and then cannot be installed on a new machine, nor can that machine be upgraded, without hellacious problems.

Hacking isn't that easy. In order for anyone to remotely control your computer, a program has to be installed on your computer to allow remote control. The remote server cannot install the software, YOU have to install the software. Of course now, if you use warez, you might have some concerns that the company might now that. But hey, none of us use warez do we? heh heh heh

I have bad news for you bonestructure hacking is dead easy if you have one or more trojans lurking in your system. Try using a firewall like Blackice Defender which not only gives you the IP from where attacks are being launched but the type of attacks. The most common of these tend to be SubSeven and Back Orifice pings and a range of other probes to see if your computers ports are open and amenable to allowing the hacker in. My record is 47 such probes on my system in a five-hour web session. Experienced hackers can trawl millions of computers on the net in one session. (have a look at http://www.networkice.com/ for lots of info and links on the topic) If you have a trojan in your system and no firewall and the hacker comes after you the chances are you won't even know it happened. And you can pick up a trojan from any download on the net. I understand it is now even technically possible to hide small programs, virus's and trojans in graphics data, i.e. a picture. Anti-Virus programs are generally poor at spotting trojans and very few ordinary surfers use specialised anti-trojan or trojan hunting programs. On the question of Aureate gathering info on surfers, maybe you are right and should not worry, but in some cases this data might be used against surfers in the future. But, there are many countries in the world that have far less liberal laws than e.g. the USA. Certain extremist regiemes imprison, torture and even execute people for looking at things that are considered legal and "normal" in the USA and much of Europe such as adult graphic sites like Renderotica. Ask Amnesty International about this if you want the evidence. There is no guarentee that Aureate's illegally gathered surfer's IP addresses and surfing information habits would not fall into the hands of the security and police authorities of such regiemes and have serious consequences for many ordinary people (after all the manufacturers of over 300 software products already get this stuff from Aureate - some security headache!). The info could also be used for Blackmail purposes by individuals or intelligence services. I object to such illegal information gathering and so do many others. On a final note you may not have to worry about your "Aureate profile" but if you do not have a good firewall I would advise you not to keep any sensitive personal information such as financial/bank details, credit card information or anything of that nature in an open folder on your computer. Use a good encryption program for it or store it in a removable disk. Then again maybe I am just a little bit paranoid having lost my system to a hacker last Christmas. STORM

What you mean is that you lost your puter to a cracker. There's a diff between the two, though most people don't realize it. I'm an ex hacker. I have several friends that are hackers, one that works for the FBI in their hack division. My computer is impenetrable. Only one port open. And that one's protected. I run virus scans weekly. I keep no valuable information on the computer at all. I'm too desperately poor to even think about having a credit card or a bank account. Aureate doesn't bother me. As for trojans, I don't open files from anyone I don't know. ever. I've even told the writers that submit to my magazine that I will not open Word documents, ever, under any circumstances from anyone. Word is the primary carrier for trojans and viruses. That and outlook express. I've had people try to crack me, but I've never been cracked. Common sense protection and knowing how to seal windows prevents most of it. And it doesn't matter if you have a firewall or anything else. If someone is determined to crack you, they will. Aureate doesn't bother me. MIcrosoft and Intel with their serial numbered chips bother me. That's why I also refuse to use Pentium chips or any microsoft program other than win and media player.

...he speaks words of WISDOM here!! ;-)

Yes you do speak words of wisdom bonestructure, and if you look at my post in Renderotica (news) you will see my small familiarity with this area is very recent, limited and triggered by a bad experienece that I would not wish on anyone. However, despite its major shortcomings, I believe that my limited knowledge is probably greater than the vast majority of ordinary surfers on the net and that is scary because it shows up the vulnerability of people to the preditors be they Aureate, or Hackers or (and thank you for explaining it) Crackers. Your security precautions are something that many people could learn from. But just like many car drivers have no idea what goes on under the bonnet, many computer users will never learn about the dangers of the waters they surf in. And in those circumstances programs like ZoneAlarm might protect them and their often valuable and irreplacable data in some cases. If the computer, that we all increasingly rely on, were a house, it would have guard dogs, alarms, security glass and more if the neighbourhood posed equivilent threats to the ones that exist in cyberspace. And yes I agree with you the big boys like Microsoft and Intel may yet be proven to be the Al Capones of this whole saga. These days before I go to bed (which will be soon as it is 3.30 AM here) I unplug my 'puter from the mains and disconect the cable from the net. This despite boot passwords etc.etc. Mad is it not. 'night bonestructure, 3DSprite.... STORM

Seems to me that companies like Aureate Media Corporation leave themselves open to some Class Action Lawsuites. After all, they are illegally obtaining data (& or conspirering with others to do so) from Your system without Your permission using Your bandwith from Your home or office. Any hungry lawyers out there?

well, generally, the public outcry over stuff like this makes the company revise their policies, as per when Sierra did the same thing, and a couple other game companies.

Bone, just one thing, nothings impenetrable, there are always ways around things, and there always will be. having that mindset is a bad thing. -F3nix

oh of course. If someone wants into your computer, they're gonna get in. But this kind of secret software thing is going to get more and more sophisticated as the net gets more sophisticated. The new software standards that the software makers want to pass gives them the ability to get into your computer and remotely disable your sotware. Literally. Now I understand their concern over piracy, but giving them the right to do ANYTHING on my computer goes against everything I believe is right. Microsoft has already made office 2000 machine exclusive, in that it has to be installed on a particular machine, it cannot be transferred to another machine without completely reregistering it, you can't even change hard drives or upgrade without having to reregister it as it bases its program on the specific configuration of the machine it's installed on. You don't even want to hear the stories from network administrators from trying to install it on multiple machines that I've heard. Personally, I use PK Zip and Download Accelerator, both of which use this spy software. I don't have a problem with it. But I also recognize that this is a small drop in a pond that's going to get larger and larger every year.