[thelist] FREEWARE

Dear Evolters,

Being a newbie, I occasionally unknowingly or accidentally break the
fine rules of the evolt LIST.  Because all of you are so kind and
sharing of your knowledge, I have gotten permission to share this email
with you about some cool freeware that I think you may be interested
in.  This is not meant to be an advertisement on my part.  This email is
from the maker of ZoneAlarm, which I have found to be a very useful
program.  Thanks!

Janet

Steve Gibson's MailBot wrote:

>              Announcing my NEW freeware:  " OptOut "
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Internet Privacy:
>
>  OptOut?
>
>    Several weeks ago a scare swept through the Internet community
>    regarding alleged Internet "spying" being done by a very
>    popular advertising system known as "Aureate" (now renamed to
>    "Radiate".) Since the Aureate system is "carried" into the
>    user's PC by more than 400 popular freeware programs (like
>    Go!Zilla, GetRight, CuteFTP, and others), and is currently
>    installed and running in over TWENTY-TWO MILLION PC's!!, the
>    threat that this software was "spying" on its users was of
>    great and immediate concern.
>
>    My initial analysis of the Aureate system revealed that MUCH
>    of what had been claimed was completely unfounded. However,
>    that analysis DID raise enough concern and questions that I
>    decided to look further...
>
>    What I discovered was that this system WAS secretly running as
>    a "parasite" on your Netscape or Microsoft web browser, using
>    your browser's Internet connection to communicate with Aureate
>    servers in the background without the user's knowledge or
>    explicit permission! This meant that the Aureate software was
>    running and communicating over the Internet even when the
>    hosting "carrier" freeware, which brought it into the system,
>    was not running! This browser "parasite" had also been
>    implicated in frequent crashes of those browsers. And even
>    after the "freeware" which brought this parasitic software
>    into the user's machine had been completely removed, THE
>    AUREATE SYSTEM REMAINED INSTALLED AND OPERATING SECRETLY!
>
>    This was not okay.
>
>    A reading of Aureate's developer web site shows that the
>    freeware authors are receiving payment from the advertisers
>    in direct proportion to the number of advertisements actually
>    viewed and the length of time they are shown. In order to do
>    this, the actaul use of the various programs MUST be monitored
>    and reported back to Aureate.
>
>    This bothered me too.
>
>    So ... since I already knew of other similar sounding problems
>    with "Adbots" being secretly installed in user's machines (The
>    ZoneAlarm firewall discovered a different one running in my
>    own machine!), I decided to create an easy-to-use tool to
>    check for the presence of known "baddies" and -- optionally --
>    remove them from the computer for the user.
>
>    The program is called "OptOut" because it allows users to "opt
>    out" of the use of unwanted advertising software on their
>    machines.
>
>    I wrote it in 100% assembly language over the past two weeks,
>    it's a nifty little 32K bytes in size ... and the "Preview
>    Release" is ready for you to use right now!
>
>    Please see the new "OptOut" page on the grc.com web site for
>    more information and news about Aureate and OptOut. You can
>    download it from there too...
>
>     <a href= "http://grc.com/optout.htm" >Our OptOut Site</a>
>
>  ZoneAlarm Update:
>
>    The FREE ZoneAlarm firewall is evolving nicely and I expect to
>    soon be able to recommend it without reservation.  Version 2.1
>    is currently in beta testing, and is really working VERY well.
>    It adds the significant new feature of "event logging" so that
>    a record of blocked Internet traffic is preserved.
>
>    ZoneLabs has given me permission to point you to their version
>    2.1 beta page, where you can download and experiment with this
>    very nicely developing free personal firewall:
>
>    <a href= "http://www.zonelabs.com/beta_download.htm" >ZA Beta</a>
>
>  My Current Internet Security/Privacy Project:
>
>    As you might have guessed, my work on the new OptOut freeware
>    has diverted my attention away from work on the hyper-speed
>    port scanner. I will be working on the new OptOut web site for
>    a while, and enhancing the OptOut program to detect and remove
>    several other known "spyware" systems. Once OptOut is firmly
>    in place, I plan to return to work on the hyper-speed port
>    scanner.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Thanks for your time. I hope this has been useful to you.
>
> Steve Gibson.         <a href= "http://grc.com/" >GRC Website</a>
>