Computer Safety - Tracking Software

Anti-Personal Privacy Software

Is it possible that someone is using your computer to learn more about you?  You bet.  And realistically, you don't even have to have sensitive information on your computer for this to be a threat.

Do you log into email accounts, bank accounts, or buy anything online?  Do you want some total stranger to know everywhere you go?  Have you borrowed software from a friend and put it on your computer.  While it would seem minor, are you comfortable letting the company that made it know what you have done?

If these are concerns for you, then you should be concerned about anti-privacy software that is out there.  

Most software doesn't report anything to anyone unless you consider that most manufacturers want you to register your copy.  However, even some very reputable software now requires a digital key to operate, and when you install this software, it seeks to get this digital key from the manufacturer though the Internet. In this process, the manufacturer learns information about you and assigns this info to your key.  If someone else's computer also attempts to get this key for the same serial number product, the manufacturer knows there is some sharing going on.

Nefarious Anti-Privacy Software

Trojans definitely fall into this area, but other special versions require specific mention.  Keyloggers are one such threat.  Though rare, keyloggers are nasty little programs and when you spot one, you can be pretty sure that someone is targeting you specifically.

Keyloggers are small pieces of software that do exactly what their name says, they log every key stroke that is made on your computer and save it to a file.

This information is either sent to or be retrieved by the party responsible for placing it there.  With that, they can then learn how to access the things that you access including your login names and passwords.

Checking for and eliminating anti-privacy software 

Trojans are generally spotted by most antivirus software.  However, you do have to actually do a search of your entire system and that can take some time.  

Keyloggers aren't as easy to spot with mainstream software, but Spybot S&D will help to find and eliminate these culprits.

Cookies

The term "cookies" sounds like it couldn't be much of a threat, and in most cases they aren't.  When you go to most websites, cookies are placed on your computer for the purposes of tracking what pages you see on that site, establishing if and when you were to that site before, and similar information.  

This info is then read from your computer and entered into the masses for website owners to track visitor statistics.  However, their ability to trace this to you is almost non-existant.

You can disable cookies if you want, but there really is no need for it.  In fact accepting cookies is required in order to see content on some sites and in most cases, to allow you to shop online.  It's your computer that keeps track of the purchase.