A Little More Privacy

It is something that a lot of you will think I harp on about quite a bit... But being as private and secure as you can be online is really a no-brainer.

Aside from all the spyware out there, and all the viruses, and every crafty bugger trying to send you several million quid from Nigeria, there is a "new" problem facing people now.

And I am not talking about Internet Doomsday. Keep your computer safe, you'll be fine.

No, I am talking about all the little bits and bobs that dwell on your computer and inside the web pages you are visiting, tracking you, following you, seeing what you're doing online pretty much everywhere you go. Sometimes they are called trackers, sometimes beacons, other times bugs... But they are everywhere, even the places you honestly don't think you will find them.

Now, without even doing it intentionally, without adding anything into the code, do you know that 0ddness itself (I have now discovered!) has five different sites watching you? Facebook knows you're here (thanks to the friend-connect thing), Google Adsense AND FriendConnect know you are here, Statcounter knows you are here, and Technorati knows you are here.

These are things that, yes, I have added to 0ddness. The social plugin I just assumed was for people to click "Like", AdSense is NOT me, FriendConnect is so other people with Google Accounts can "like" 0ddness directly, StatCounter is my hit counter, and Technorati is a blog catalogue, and I ASSUMED, just a little button.

Five sites, all seeing who you are, where you are, where you've been...

Shockingly, The Pirate Bay (which my ISP wasn't told to block!) has zero on its homepage.

0ddness.co.uk

Sky News

Yahoo Homepage

I heard about a fancy little bit of software, however, and decided to give it a bash, see what's what and how necessary it might be. It's called Ghostery, and can be installed on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer - though I COULDN'T get it working on the last (shocking). It's free, too, so it's not like you're paying for something you aren't sure about.

Installing it is as difficult as clicking a couple of buttons, and once you've run through the three or four setup screens, you're good to go. I've left the alert window set to ON so I can see just how many people are trying to follow me around, and so far, most sites have four or five - some have lots more mind you!

I've currently got mine set to block everything and everyone because they are all baaaastards mode, but will go through and allow something things... StatCounter, and Google Friend Thingie being the main two, BUT there are well over 800 different "things" that it can block.

Next time you are wondering how it is that the banner ad on the side of a page is strangely specific to the thing you were looking for just this morning, these little tracking things are why.

And now you know.

Sidenote: I should also point out that Firefox has a feature to tell websites not to follow you anyway. I don't know if it works or not, but it can be found under TOOLS>OPTIONS>PRIVACY>Tell Websites I Do Not Want To Be Tracked.

And honestly, if you are still insisting on using Internet Explorer, there's no helping you. Install either Firefox or Chrome, AND make sure you keep everything up to date on your machine. And don't forget the Anti-Virus either!!


PS: If you really ARE worried about INTERNET DOOMSDAY!!! then fret not. The 9th July will be a non-event, much like the other End Of The World scenario that was THE Y2K BUG!!! Read more about it here, and check your computer here.



(Yeeeeah I used the {BLINK} HTML tags! Bring back the 90s baby!)
(I am shocked and saddened that if you are viewing this in Chrome, you cannot see my Olde Skool use of the {BLINK} tags. Firefox works fine though!)
(Aw it doesn't work in IE either... So stuff you, Old Skool BLINK tags. Stuff you)

Privacy?

In recent years, we can all agree that the one thing people seem to be banging on about on the internet is "Privacy" in it's many forms. Not a week goes by when some group or organisation admits that it's had an oopsie with tens of thousands (if not millions) of it's users data, or someone has snuck in and helped themselves to said-information.

All the social networks - past and present - have been involved in various privacy/hacking/exposed data issues over the years, and people have constantly stomped, shouted and stamped to get tighter controls on privacy, but...

If you're using a Social Network - be it your Facebook, MySpaz, Twitter - or if you own a Smartphone where your data is stored on the Cloud, if you use the internet to buy or sell "things", or if you're on forums or whatever... Surely you should realise that everything you do somewhere, somehow, is tracked?

I had someone message me on Twitter the other day, telling me I should be worried that people can see where I am tweeting from. I had just dropped the kids off at their mums and was twittering away merrily when the message arrived. Yes, I do use location on my tweets, but the bigger questions here is: So? Does it really affect me that people know my tweet three minutes ago came from the High Street?

Same goes for my blog posts - invariably, if I am posting, I am sat on the sofa at my house, and every now and then, Blogger decides to insert my location under the posts. Granted, it doesn't give my address, but it either slaps in my postcode, or it puts "32-58 Long Riding" which is the street I live on, and my band of houses.

If people really wanted to find my address, there are easier ways. First off, people know where I live thanks to the descriptions I give in my posts: Blood Red House of Death across the road, for example. Secondly, I own web domains - including 0ddness.co.uk - so a simple WhoIs enquiry will show you my name, address and phone number.

There are people on Facebook that jump up and down screaming that Facebook put a cookie on their computer so they know what sites they've been on, but you're on THE INTERNET - cookies are A) nothing new, and B) most companies use them. If you have the right software, you can see what cookies you have on your computer, and generally, there will be LOTS on there. ALL shopping sites use them. Marketing sites. Survey sites. MySpace used them - in fact, MySpace was AWFUL for giving peoples personal info away, yet it never ever made the headlines. Google track their users too - searches are logged on their servers, pages they visit, files downloaded - and that is on both your computer AND your android device. Earlier this year, Apple got smacked wrists after a couple of blokes discovered that everywhere you go is mapped by your iPhone and stored online. Blackberry users are quite happy using their BBM system, but most of you don't realise every chat, every file shared - it's all logged and saved on RIMs servers...

My point is this - if you want TRUE privacy, then you shouldn't be on the internet, and you shouldn't own a smartphone. Everything you have ever done, the sites you have been on, the things you have bought, the files you have downloaded - they are all logged somewhere.

How many of you - honestly - have ever read through the License Agreement of any bit of software you've ever installed? Granted, it's always long-winded and tedious, but by clicking accept without reading, you're basically saying allowing that bit of software to do whatever they makers have set it to do. If they put a clause in there stating that they can harvest your contact details daily, and you click accept - the onus is on YOU, not them, to have made up your mind that you do or do not want your data shared.

Then, we have things like Facebook, that often change how they work, how they store or share your data... Now, for several years, everyone has KNOWN that Facebook change their privacy settings at the drop of a hat. Everyone KNOWS that they may or may not use your data for whatever they want... Yet when it hits the news that they've done This, That or The Other, people jump up and down and scream and shout about their privacy being breached. The same goes for some smartphones, or photo storage sites or whatever... Things are changed, or weaknesses are discovered and exploited.

Let's put it another way. There's a Storage Company near you. Everyone you know keeps their Important Things in there, and because everyone else does, you do too. Every few months, the storage company changes how they operate, and the Important Things you have stored are visible to everyone, regardless of you wanting them to see them or not. Also, every few months, you hear about a break-in and lots of people having their Important Things taken. The company respond by saying "This is how it is, end of subject"

You wouldn't keep your things in there, would you? Granted, you would expect things to be safe, but you need to take into account the fact that there are people out there that would quite happily root through your stuff and take/publish things that are private.

A while ago, I found a post detailing how to access ANYONES Facebook page. It was a bit technical, and involved hiding where you were, setting up dummy email accounts and everything else, but the fact is, people would have taken this information and used it to access the Facebook page of anyone it wants. Compromising pictures on FB?

A while back, I made a similar post about Privacy, when it occurred to me how easy it is for someone - with a bit of time and effort - to take little bits of info about you and build a complete profile of someone, with enough data to attempt accessing things like PayPal, your Bank Account or similar sensitive pages.

As bloggers, we often get the random questions (Tagged!) circulating around, with many many mundane questions. But if you were to collate several of these questionnaires, you would see that you are giving away information that function as Security Questions. Mothers Maiden Name, Street You Grew Up On, First School, Best Friends Name, Name of First Pet - these have all popped up as security questions for me over the recent months and years...

My point is, while you might expect privacy on the internet, or on your phone, or through your email, the fact is you leave a trail where ever you go, one that can be picked up by anyone - good or bad - and used for whatever purposes. While you can expect the things you do and say to be hidden, keep in mind that this is the internet, and that even the computer you are using is flawed. Chances are, you're on a PC, and that means there's a good bet you're on Windows. Microsoft release patches every week to fix holes and vulnerabilities on the machine you are using. If someone wants to access your machine, and has the knowledge to do so, they will.

Before you jump up and down about wanting your internet life to be private, just remember:  It's Not.

Digital Darwinism

Following a conversation on someones status a week or so ago, I am now a firm believer in Digital Darwinism.

For those of you that somehow don't know, Darwin is the chap that pushed evolution, survival of the fittest and all that stuff.  Weak species either die out or evolve to adapt to their weakness; the strong ones survive, the weak ones don't, simple as that.

So, with the world being pretty much digital, it STILL amazes me how many people don't have a basic grasp of online safety.  Since I started playing online, being aware of flaws in the system, it is clear the biggest flaw with the internet is the users themselves.  It's the users that exploit holes in operating systems (ie, Microsoft constantly fixing flaws in Windows), it's the users that try to steal peoples data (PSN, anyone!), it's the users that write viruses to steal/destroy, and, perhaps most importantly, it's the USERS that spread all these viruses around.

Facebook is no longer new by any standards, and those on there should be well aware that there are knobheads constantly trying to steal your personal details or infect your computer with viruses or other malware, yet every day, I log on to find a dozen or more people have "shared links" that are so blatently dodgy, I don't understand HOW they have fallen for it.

Again!

I have always banged on about internet security.  A decent Anti-Virus, a decent Malware scanner, and the Windows Firewall enabled, and you're good to go.  No, you don't need to pay for any of these things, they are all free online.  I've gone on and on about it, but clearly, the message is NOT getting through.

And thus begins the Digital Darwinism.

No longer am I going to tell people there's a good chance they have a virus or malware on their computer.  No longer am I going to tell people the links they are clicking are taking them to a site that is putting data-stealing stuff on their machines.  No longer am I going to tell people that the "Really Urgent Warning About Something" they are forwarding to all their friends (just because it says so) is actually a hoax, and all you are doing is annoying everyone.

My theory is this.  Eventually, these people are going to have so many viruses and shite on their machines, they won't be able to load windows, and thus won't get online to spread more crap.  They are taken out of the Digital Ecosystem, and no longer able to spread their rubbish around.

I know, one down, a billion to go.  BUT if everyone that KNOWS internet safety were to remain silent, eventually, all the spanners will disappear off the internet.

Want to be spared the cull? It's simple:

Download and install Avast Antivirus Free Edition
Obviously, you need to keep it up to date, and register it once a year with a valid email address. No, they don't spam you or sell on their info. BEFORE installing it, ensure you have uninstalled any other Antivirus software. Before you do this, DISCONNECT from the internet.

Download and install MalwareBytes Anti Malware
Keep it up to date, scan every week or two.

Download and install cCleaner
Run it once a week - it will remove dead files, old files, unused system files and keep your hard drive in good working order.

Enable Windows Automatic Updates
If it's up to date, it's harder for people to use the flaws in windows to get to your personal data.

Enable the Windows Firewall
A final line of defense against any intrusion onto your system.

Ignore ANY message that tells you to forward to all your friends
If something says "THIS happened!" and asks to be sent to everyone, don't do it - you're just gumming up facebook/email servers with something that invariably is false. Five weekends in a month every 800 years, apparent virus warnings, scary stories...

Ignore ANYTHING that tells you to do something before you can view/read something else
Especially on Facebook, but generally - installing software before viewing a page, referring five friends before viewing a video, posting something to your wall to see that shocking article - there is usually nothing there but bad news.

If you like a quote, VERIFY IT before spreading it
When Osama was offed, everyone was forwarding various quotes, especially "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy."  You were had - MLK never said it. Just because a friend did it, doesn't mean it's true.

If something seems to good to be true, it's probably a scam
Billionnare sharing their wealth? Charity donation of eight figures for you to help clear? A large corperation donating everyone time you forward an email? Sorry, all lies.

If you're in doubt, the final four can be EASILY checked.  There's this thing called "Google" you can use.  Best bet, type in what it is you are reading.  If you put it into the search box and hit enter, go through a few results to see just what it is you are forwarding.  Otherwise, the best three places to look online are Snopes, About Urban Legends, and Sophos.  All three sites are up to date, and full of info about scams, viruses, and let you know what happens if you DO click that link three friends sent you apparently out of the blue.

There are other things you can do for safety.  Changing from Internet Explorer to Firefox, using Gmail for your email, run Facebook in secure mode... Additionally, Sophos have a Facebook page that has lots of warnings of virus-apps, scams and outright lies. Become a Fan, and you will get updates from them when the proverbial crap is circulating.

By all means, you can ignore this, you can disregard all this information, but when your computer falls over and your personal data is going down the loo, remember, you COULD have stopped it - you just chose not to. And eventually, when you're offline, the internet is minus one user spreading crap!

Deranged? Hopeful?

The old phrase of "Shit Happens" has always been true, but now in the modern age, I suppose it could be re-tuned slightly to the new version of "Downloads Happen"

I've been playing on the Internet for many many years, and it's always been something that has been available in some form or another, be it information, music, or more recently, TV Shows and Movies.  Hell, even waaay back, I can remember trading games at school on 5.25" floppy discs.  You know, those ones that actually WERE floppy.

Before that, it was mix tapes being shared around the school kids.  "Piracy" is not something new, and since I was 11, it's been readily available.  The Internet just happens to make it more-so.  Instead of giving a tape to the smelly kid in the playground, I can now get a song from that strange guy in Taiwan.

Music, Books, Games, Software, Movies, Shows, Documentaries - if it's been broadcast or exists, you can probably get it illegally.

I'm not here, however to condone nor praise file sharing.  What I AM going to moan about, however, is the Music Industry and, shall we say, their ever-so-amusing demands.

We all know music is big business.  There are charts flying around on the web showing where the breakdown of sales is distributed, for instance:

From Indie RnB.net

Now, back when the first real target was Napster, the Record Industry decided that music was worth squillions and berjillions.  I kid ye not.  In 2008, the RIAA sued The Pirate Bay, citing 34 case of copyright infringement.  The cost for each one?

$382,353

Let's look at that another way, I currently have 500 songs on my phone. If I had obtained them illegally, then according to the RIAA, I would owe $191,176,500.

Now, I am fairly sure that their numbers are a little on the screwy side, especially when you can download a track now for something like 49p... In THAT case, my songs would have cost me £245.  I'm not even going to translate from Dollars to Pounds and stuff because lets face it, even in the shitty climate, it's not a big leap to see the difference.

So, Napster came and went, as did many other file sharing/peer-to-peer networks, and, the latest "big name" to be shut down was LimeWire.

As an aside, Limewire should have been renamed VirusWire, because every single computer I've ever repaired downloaded virus from there. Seeded by people trying to stop file sharing?  Possibly...

Tinfoil hats off, with LimeWire gone, the record labels are stomping over the ashes trying to make money from it, and here's the reeeeally funny part that I cannot help but laugh at...

The have been asked to estimate the damages owed to them.

Low End: $400 BILLION.
High End: $75 TRILLION.

To put that a little more into perspective, that high-end figure is more than the entire worlds GDP.  And $400 billion is, shall we say, completely and utterly ridiculous. And I do mean ridiculous - that's more money than ALL the record industry has EVER made EVER since the phonograph was invented.

I'd be interested to know how much these companies would have actually made, were these songs legally obtained.  Even more amusingly, do they actually expect LimeWire to go "Oh shit, you win, here's $400billion, sorry, won't do it again"  Even if LimeWire were owned by the top five world's richest men, that's still "only" $260 Billion.  Putting that into perspective, everyone knows the tale of Bill Gates and the Very Big Wallet... He ranks at number two, with a net worth of just $56 billion.

How to combat piracy?  To be honest, I can't see any way it will ever be stopped, not on an international scale.  Before Napster was gone, there were dozens of other methods of downloading.  And this is just Peer-to-Peer sharing, this isn't even touching on Torrent downloads.  Unless the "copyright people" can get each and every single ISP in the world to block each and every file sharing, torrent hunting site there is - and all the new ones that appear, as they appear - then even THEN, there is nothing to stop the file sharing of twenty years ago making a come back, and everyone passing their stuff to others, to pass to others...

So, in ten years time, I'll be out on a foggy night, wearing a cool hat, standing under a lamp post, holding a newspaper folded three times.  The password is "inconceivable" and I will give you the 5.25" floppy with my BBC-Master games on it.

Shhh.

Password Security

I like to think that I am pretty computer savvy.

No, scratch that.  I AM computer savvy, if you go by the number of calls that start with "I've just been on my computer and..."  And quite often here, or on various CHD Lists, I can be found banging on about computer security, software, and so on and so on.

So, this morning, going through the blogs I read, I came across Robert Gale's A Welsh View. He'd linked to a site that "rates" your password, telling you how long it'd take to crack.  The password of his he used ranked in at 154 Nonillion Years.  That's 154+ FIFTY FOUR zeros.

Now, I DO tend to use the same two passwords for my security.  The sites I'm not really worried about, I use what I consider a "weak" password, but my proper passwords I use a strong one.  Letters, numbers...

So, I put in my strong password for it to check, and... well...

Robert Gales Password "IN YEARS):

My Password (IN DAYS)

SOMETHING tells me I need to rework my password.

Anyways, the site you want to visit is the How Secure Is My Password site, and see how you rank :D

Privacy Woes

It's not been much of a secret that Facebook has been in the press a lot lately.  And the more worrying thing about it is, it's been in the press a lot for the same reasons.

Privacy, Lack Thereof, and Your Information.

Now, if you've not seen any of it, it's probably a good idea to pay attention here, because your personal info could well be smeared across any number of websites you've visited, your data could be being used to target you with spam, and you could be getting signed up for random shit.

Right now.

A while back, Facebook changed it's privacy settings.  You may have seen the big box that read something like "We've made it easier to adjust your privacy!" which was very nice.  I bet most of you went "Ooooh *yawn* *close box*"  Fact is, that those settings were changed to various default states that lets facebook do what it likes with your info.  Even slightly more worrying was the fact that your FRIENDS could also use your data too.

Not good.

The geeks of the world pointed this out to the non-geeks of the world, and suddenly there was a rather large hoo-har over it all.

What people don't realise is that the guy that runs it has a pretty shady past according to the media.  Even the idea and internal gubbins of Facebook were written by a friend.  A former friend of his.  After he nicked it.  Hence him having to make a multi-million dollar out of court settlement...

Advertising is king on the internet - it's how Google make their money and can afford to give all their stuff away for free.  Microsoft is realising this, and that's why they've teamed up with Google to try get a slice of that rather nice advertising pie.  So Facebook - who also makes it's money through adverts - has decided that YOUR personal info is now THEIR personal info.  And when you're not on Facebook, you actually are, and the sites you visit that happen to have signed an agreement with them are quite happy to see who you are, where you're from, what you do, what other sites you visit...

The worst part - much like Yahoo doing something similar 8-10 years ago - is that you have to opt OUT.  That's right, the default setting is "Why yes of course you can look at my personal info!" which means you have to go in an change it.  The worst thing, is it's buried.  If you're not sure of your way around settings and options, you've got a mission on your hands.  Especially when you consider that the "new easy use" privacy settings have 170 options.

170.

So, what do you do?  Well, you could go in, and fiddle with all the settings and piss around with what-not and hope for the best.  You could get your Not-Dan-Computer-Geek to help sort it out for you.  Or, you could try this tool over at ReclaimedPrivacy.org

THANKFULLY it's as easy as clicking, dragging, pressing some buttons, and job done.  The instructions are all very clear and easy to use, and bare in mind that I thought I'd managed to set my Facebook page to nice and private.  Turns out, I'd missed a couple of settings.  Oops.

Honestly, follow the instructions, get yourself secured.  It'll only be a matter of time before someone manages to get your info and do something with it...  Except, me not being a nefarious hacker, I'm not sure what they would do, but I'm betting something.  People are quitting Facebook in droves (I'm not saying it's dying mind you, but they ARE leaving) for various alternatives that are cropping up, and even various media outlets are suggesting "Maybe it's time to try something else"

Good luck out there ;)

Sources:

Facebooks new privacy changes:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly

Facebook reduces control over personal information:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information

Things to stop doing on Facebook:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things-to-stop-doing-now-on-facebook

Facebook's gone rouge:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/

Essential privacy tips:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/18/facebook-privacy-tips/

What happens in Facebook stays in Facebook:
http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

Windows 7 - First Impressions

First off, apologies for the image here - for some reason, Blogger is telling me the images I am trying to use are being rejected by the server, so screw them ;)

Anyways - after managing to get Windows 7 for my Acer Aspire 8930G, I spent a couple of days backing up my files, downloading drivers and what-not...  Taking a deep breath - and making sure I had my Vista recovery discs to hand - I put the disc in, rebooted and selected Boot From Disc...

Now, the last install I did of any kind was Windows XP, and those installs often seemed quite hit and miss.  I DO have Vista on my actual computer, but in the three years I've owned it, its never needed a reinstall.  However, last week, I DID reinstall Kellies old laptop with Vista, and it took several hours, but being that it's just a bog-standard laptop, it didn't have any problems or anything.

So, with XP and Vista installs under my belt, part of me was dreading a completely New-To-Me system install.

After 15 minutes of it doing it's thing, it rebooted and - lo and behold - gave me the "Starting Windows for the first time" message...

Now, I should interject at this point, this is actually the second time I saw this message while doing this install.  However, the first time, I got an error saying "Unable to complete install" and it froze up.  So I called a mulligan on that one, and am ignoring it as teething problems.

So, Windows did a few more whirs and clicks, "Creating Desktop" and voila!  It loaded.  So, being the smart person I am, I open my drive of pre-downloaded driver files and... er... blonde.  For some reason, I had downloaded all the Windows7 Professional files, not Ultimate.  And, not wanting to tempt fate, I decided to bin them, and fired up the wireless.

It connected pretty much instantly - no hassles with drivers there then.  Loaded Internet Explorer - for the sole purpose of downloading Firefox - and installed my new browser.  Straight on, loaded up and online without any hassles, and set to downloading all the updated drivers from the Acer site, and the graphics drivers from nVidia.

While waiting half an hour or so for that little lot to download, I set to fiddling with settings and buttons and everything else.  Mainly, you can tell that it's very very similar to Vista, but with enough differences to make you hunt around and figure out various things here and there.  As usual, I stripped the Start Menu down, taking most of the crap off of there I never use, then set to fiddling with themes and background images.  Then, I just sorted of wandered around the Control Panel, playing with various things.

I DID notice that - as I had been told by James in the first place - Win7 has a LOT of drivers with it, and will know what most things are.  And, to give it it's dues, it recognised a lot of the things that are already on here.  The Webcam, Bluetooth, Wireless, Graphics... All on, albeit with propriety drivers.  Things like the Touchpad, Fingerprint Reader and Media Controls - they needed to be downloaded.  But, just to make sure I had everything up to date, I got the lot.

All the drivers installed, and a couple of reboots later, my computer was fresh as a daisy, running like a dream, full 1920x1080 resolution, 5.1 sound... All very nice.

So, next up came software.  Avast, MalwareBytes Anti Malware, CCleaner, MSN Messenger, Adobe Reader, WinAmp, WinZip...  All the while making sure I am downloading the 64bit versions where applicable.  Everything installed without any problems.  Here and there, Windows DID ask if that program installed correctly, and as far as I could tell, it was more like Vista having a panic attack asking if you're really really sure you want to do something.

Quite by accident, I clicked on a video file in one of my folders, and, expecting to get an error message to pop up, I was more surprised that it actually played.  I checked my download list, and hadn't installed any of the codecs needed - usually I have to install two codecs for video, one or two for sounds... But surprisingly, this worked without hassle.

So, being a glutton for punishment, I tried another one, which worked.  And the next, and the next too.  So, as it stands, I haven't installed any of my codecs for anything.  Which is a bonus.

After all my software was on and running, I pressed the "Update Windows" button.  When I did this on Kellies Vista laptop last week, I had to chuckle at the 108 Important Updates, and further 60 or so Recommended Updates, so thinking it'd be similar I stood back... In total, there were 51 Important, and 3 Recommended.  And it turned out Windows had already downloaded them for me.  So after ten minutes of installing, and a reboot...  Job Done.

In total, I think I went from a freshly formatted hard drive, to a fully installed and updated machine in less than three hours.  Most of which was the computer whirring, or downloading, or installing, or updating.

It has to be said, I love Windows7.  I runs well, it's fast, it's very pretty, and while I like the feature of the random wallpaper, being so anally retentive, I don't like them all, so will have to get a load I DO like!  I like how you can pin things to the taskbar, and how the jumplists work.  I like the system tray customisation tool, the new device manager, and I love the fact you can actually remove Internet Explorer...

I'm sure over the coming days and weeks I will start fiddling deeper and deeper into the system... But Windows7 gets a big fat thumbs up from me :)

Privacy

I like to think that when I am pootering around on the computer, wandering the web or chatting to people, I can expect some level or privacy. Not from people here, but people out there. The Watchers. Big Brother. The Powers That Be.

Now, I'm not silly to think that my surfing can't be checked on someone at any time, and that everyone leaves a trail. Heck, you only have to look at StatCounter to see the sort of info the "average person" leaves behind on websites they visit. But that sort of stuff doesn't really cause much hassle.

The things that really piss me off on the web are the adverts. Popups, Popunders, Banners, Skyscrapers, Miniads, Flashing, Animated, Static - they drive me nuts. So nuts, in fact, that I no longer see them. Yes, I am probably doing someone out of their GoogleAds paycheque, or their referral meter is slipping behind, but you know what.

I don't care.

Yep, it might sound harsh, it might be heartless, but there is nothing that anyone advertises that I want. Hosting, Space, Sex Toys, Pills, Diplomas - not to mention the "You Have Won!" crap. I don't want it.

Thanks to Firefox and the little addon called AdBlock, I don't see any adverts. And, on the rare occurrence that I DO see one, I add the server details to the filter, reload the page and... Ahhhh Ad Free.

However, it would appear that there are plans by various ISPs over here to start cashing in on the "Targeted Ad" stuff, and three of them are already planning on rolling it out; BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse. All these companies are adding a product from a company called "Phorm" who used to be a Spyware/Adware company. Nice.

The essence of the Phorm scheme is straightforward. It will have equipment at ISPs that will track your activities on port 80 (used for the web) - though not to secure websites. With each site you visit it will capture the URL (and, for a search engine, the search terms too) plus enough of the header data from the page to "categorise" it into one of a number of areas. Anything longer than a three-digit number is thrown away. Your IP address is not captured, but a cookie with a unique number is set on your browser when you start using it, which persists into the future.

Sounds nice doesn't it. Just what you want. Plus, they are making it "Opt Out" as opposed to "Opt In" because they prolly know most people will respond with Heeeeeell No!

So, you can read the full article here. I suspect it's a UK thing only, but who knows...