Computer users should be wary of Spyware tracking

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Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part series teaching computer users how to stay on guard as hackers find new ways to enter "through the back door." The series will deal with some of the most recent ways hackers have found to get into home computers, and ways programmers and legislators have discovered to keep them out. By Barb Kromphardt BCR Staff BUREAU COUNTY -- If the word "Spyware" makes you think of the CIA or the latest Tom Clancy novel, think again. Spyware is as close as your home computer. Spyware first began appearing about a year and a half ago. "Now we see a lot of Spyware hits," said Le Roy Groff, office manager of Zearing Computer Tech in Princeton. "One computer had more than 800. It wasn't as common at first." In the world of computers, Spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties. The Spyware installs tracking software on the user's system that continuously reports information about the user's surfing habits to a remote location. Groff said one major sign of a Spyware infestation is a slow processing speed. Another symptom is numerous pop-up ads. "When you first start realizing the pop-ups are hitting you hot and heavy that's when you know you've been hit with Spyware," Groff said. He added one customer came in because he was having a lot of trouble getting onto the Internet. "Pop-up ads appeared constantly," Groff said. "I ran Ad-aware and there were over 300 hits." Ad-aware is a program that's available as a free download on the Internet to detect and remove Spyware. According to Shawn Doubet of Buda, Ad-aware fixed his computer problems. "I couldn't access Microsoft Word anymore," Doubet said. "I kept getting a time-out error, so Le Roy suggested Ad-aware." Doubet downloaded the program and ran it. Ad-aware found nearly 40 Spyware hits. "They were causing the problem," Doubet said. "This obviously fixed it." Spyware also can lead to other problems. "Because what it also does is force other pop-ups on your machine, too," Groff said. "Which is putting you to areas you didn't necessarily want." Groff has had people complain of getting hit with endless pornography sites. "If you got an e-mail that accidentally gets you there, and believe me, they're out there everyday, if you open it and get into that loop, it's a real nightmare to get out," he said. "Now you've got a hit on your machine and you get hit from every other site because it's sending it out to them that 'hey, this person looks at this kind of site.'" Running a software program like Ad-aware once will remove any Spyware that's been programmed into a computer. Running it regularly will keep it away. Groff and Doubet said they run the program every couple of days. It takes a couple of minutes to run, depending on how many files are on the machine. Groff ran the program on Monday afternoon and found one new hit since he'd last run it on Saturday. He has had a total of 164 hits since installing it on his computer a year ago. "My hits have been fairly minimal because I know to not open junk e-mails," he said. Groff said just reading an e-mail message without taking any action opens it up. Opening an attachment is even worse, because the attachments are more apt to have problems. He said AOL screens its customers' e-mails to try and prevent problems from coming through, which is one of the benefits of some of the bigger providers. He said Inforamp is also screening its e-mail. Although Spyware doesn't seem to damage a computer the way a virus can, Groff said it's more than just an annoyance. "What this is doing is tracking where you're going for advertising purposes," he said. "So it's actually an invasion of your privacy, too." By the way, Spyware is not illegal in any way. To be continued.