Spys In CyberWorld
By Kim Haas


Did you know your own computer is syping on you? Did you know that every click you make on your windows start menu is logged to a hidden, encrypted database in your computer?

It's very important that you read a site's privacy policy to find out what information a web site gathers about you when you visit and how they intend to use it.

People ARE spying on you!! Companies are beginning to check the contents of their employees computers after working hours. Have you been surfing and sending email during working hours? Would your boss approve of this? If not, your job could be in jeopardy.

Think this sounds a bit outrageous?

--- July 2000 --- FACT: 50 Workers At Dow Chemical Co.'s Headquarters Site In Michigan were fired and another 200 were Disciplined for distributing, downloading or saving pictures that were either pornographic or violent in nature.

FACT: Merck Fired Two Workers And Disciplined Several Dozen Others for what the Company called "Inappropriate Use Of The Internet."

FACT: Xerox Corporation, Fired 40 workers and The New York Times terminated 23 employees at a Data Processing Center for similar offenses.

--- January 5, 2001 --- Leading Insurance Company Royal and Sun Alliance sacked 10 people and suspended at least 77 over the distribution of "Lewd" E-mails.

Your computer keeps records of both your online and off-line activities. Everything you do is recorded. If you view web pages, movies or videos, play .wav or .midi files....it is all recorded to your hard drive! Did you know that when you do a search on the internet, this search information is recorded to hidden, encrypted files on your PC? Do you really know what's been downloaded or hidden on your computer?

Forensic analysis has become technologically superior in finding evidence of all sorts. They can remove your PC's hard drive and discover things about you that you probably didn't even know was there. Things you "thought" you deleted. You might think you've cleaned out all your sensitive files, but the truth is, many of them are still there.

Peter Constantine of Data Discovery says that "....today's computers are "grabbing material and tucking it away in little pigeonholes... The user has no idea that the data is out there."

Digital Intelligence, Inc has developed F.R.E.D.D.I.E. (F)orensic (R)ecovery of (E)vidence (D)evice (I)nterrogation (E)quipment which is portable and can be used in a crime scene (or any other time for that matter) to recover data from a multitude of electronic devices including, hard drives, CD's, Floppys, Zip drives and tape cartridges.

Skeptical person that I am, I decided to do an experiment to find out exactly HOW MUCH hidden stuff really was on my computer. If you are a Windows 95/98 user, try this experiment yourself.

1. Delete all your files from your Windows 95/98 recycle bin using the standard 'Empty Recycle Bin' command.
2. Open your browser and delete the history files and browser cache from your preferences/options menu.
3. Open Windows Explorer and right click on the drive letter you use for your main hard drive. Select "Properties"
4. Write down your drive's total Capacity, Used Space and Free Space; you'll need this later.
5. Download the Evidence EliminatorT free trial program.
6. Run the Evidence Eliminator(TM).
7. Repeat step 3 and compare how much free space is now available on your hard drive.

Here's the results of my experiment:

Total hard drive space 30,677,901,312 bytes (28.5GB)

Available space before Evidence Eliminator: 26,893,676,544 bytes
Available space AFTER Evidence Eliminator: 26,620,821,504 bytes

Total reclaimed space: 272,855,040 bytes

To translate, Evidence Eliminator(TM) removed over 260MB of files from my computer! This isn't much for those of us who have mega-space on our hard drives, but for those with more limited space, 260MB is a lot!

Here's some astonishing information I discovered about files on my computer:

295 Windows Application logs were found. These logs stored information about what windows programs I've been using each day.

There were almost 90 "components" discovered and removed that had "installed themselves" to my computer without my knowledge!

271 Start Menu Recent Documents logs were removed. This held information about what programs I had selected from my Windows Start Menu.

3,601 IE cache files were found AFTER I had cleared my IE cache and history!

1,960 IE cookies were removed. I had full control over which cookies I kept and which ones I did not.

5,636 Windows .TMP files were found that were NOT removed using the browser history delete options. Some of these files are the result of extracting .zip files that were downloaded from the internet, web pages I viewed off-line, .midi and .wav files which downloaded during visits to web pages with background music, etc.

My experiment proved to me that there IS information about me and my computer usage habits that is stored on my computer which takes up valuable space, not to mention information I might not want to ever be public knowledge. It's always a good idea to keep your computer clean of unwanted files and protect your privacy at the same time.

Are you aware of every single file on your computer? You should be! Protect yourself from Cyber-Spys and regain control of what information is stored on your PC. In this world of high technology, you never can tell when this information could be found and used.

About The Author
Kim Haas is a WAHM and CEO of Womans-Net.com, a popular online networking community focusing on working from home and women in business. Let us help you become the successful entrepreneur you want to be. To subscribe to Womans-Net News, send a message to: subscribe@womans-net.com