Senin, 18 Juli 2005

Scary New Dangers in Cyberspace

I sometimes watch TV, and I happened to catch a story on ABC World News Tonight called "Your Computer's Stealth Identity Thief." I listened carefully and learned about something scary called a "keylogger." I even saw some cool shots of Symantec's cyber ninjas tapping away on their uber-31337 keyboards. I really paid attention to the tips to help protect [my]self against key logging, spyware, and other computer viruses like "Do not click OK on pop-up windows without first reading them thoroughly." The next time I see a pop-up that says "It's ok, I won't 0wn j00," I'll feel better!

Obviously I am jaded by stories about old technology. For pete's sake, Bugbear from mid-2003 had a keylogger built in. I'm sure there are even older examples out there.

Worse, none of the "tips" mention the steps that would really make a difference, in order of least to most impact on change of user habits:


  • Patch your system.

  • Don't browse the Web or read email as administrator or root.

  • Use an alternative Web browser and mail client.

  • Don't run Windows.


Instead we're told to " Use a firewall to help prevent any unauthorized computer activity." Good grief.

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