Become invisible on the net so web bugs won’t bug you!
Jan 27 '01
The Bottom Line Using some form of firewall protection will protect your home or business system from being invaded by Internet strangers you don't invite into your virtual home.
We’ve all heard the rumors of the big eared “web bugs” roaming the Internet searching for someone to attach themselves to so they can report back to their evil masters all they can learn about the poor saps they lock onto. What leaches! What nerve!
With programs like ZoneLabs (zonelabs.com) latest version of their ZoneAlarm software loaded on your system these little bugs can’t phone home unless you let them. Most firewall software will make you fairly invisible out there on the Net. The ZoneAlarm software alerts you whenever any program on your system tries to connect with the Internet. It tells you exactly what program is requesting permission to make a transmission. You can either give your permission to let the connection be completed, or you can tell it to shut it down. You have complete control.
Fortunately, we are learning more and more about how these little bugs are limited and just how harmless they are in their current state. That doesn’t mean that we won’t have anything to worry about in the future. But for now, let’s see what’s really going on here.
The monkey wrench in all of the exploding “web bug” conspiracy theories is this: your IP address is the key and there just isn’t much these little pests can get from that each time you are logged on. This is especially true if you are not using a DSL or cable connection. That’s really god news for most of us.
Every time most of us blue-collar types log onto the Internet through our dial-up ISP our computers are dynamically assigned an address that looks something like 152.384.20.18. If you have a DSL account or cable access you will have the same static address each time you go online. But us everyday schmoe dial-ups will be assigned a different address every time we get online.
What we’re learning about these web bugs is that their current technology can’t gather much more than the current address of the user, the referrer and the browser type you are using at the time they report back home. That’s not really very much info and its not really very personal, yet. Right?
Also, the “web bugs” can only identify their host as long as they are online. Once you log off the connection is broken and your old address won’t mean a thing to anyone. So as long as you are using a modem and any kind of firewall software protection you’re fairly immune to losing any highly person data to the “bugs”.
Now, if somebody like the FBI really wants to know who you were they could possibly trace “web bug” info back to you. But they would really have to want to. This is how they caught up with the “Melissa” and “I Love You” virus creators and here’s how they did it.
Each time you log on to the Internet your ISP usually logs your account name, the time, your assigned address and the phone number you dialed in from. So it’s possible, with just some simple “web bug” info, that if someone could access your ISP’s logs, they could track you down. The FBI did it and from what I understand law enforcement agencies get warrants for these logs regularly.
This kind of logging takes place on many proxy servers and many large companies also log web hits from within their own organizations. So beware of your surroundings and don’t think you are invisible. Kinda makes you think twice about doing funny business on the Internet, doesn’t it?
So rest easy for now. With the proper firewall software protection in place you can become somewhat invisible on the Net and fend off many serious bug attacks. Even considering all of these legal and illegal “sneakers” possibilities it’s never been proven that anyone has planted “web bugs” in shared web documents and run some software program to gather web server info on the unsuspecting victims. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen someday, like tomorrow.
That’s my Epinion. Mahalo for the visit and I hope to see you again soon.
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Epinions.com ID:
Schinjay
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Member: Steve Schindler
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 57 members
About Me:
Steve Schindler writes his informative and humorous "Schindler's Cyber List" for epinions.com.
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