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Spyware Threat
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Could opening a friendly
greeting card be a problem? You bet! |
Would you be worried about opening a greeting card from a friend? There
could be problems doing so if you don't know what company you are dealing
with. There are many reputable greeting card companies out there but some
greeting cards are now being used to send pornography, or to place porn
images on the desktop, or to spy on you.
In late 2002 a new technology emerged in which greeting cards are being
used harvest the entire e-mail contact list of the recipient. When you
receive the card you will be asked to load a plug-in. You will then see
a lengthy "click-wrap" license that includes language in which
you agree to let them download your contact list.
Once they have your contact list everyone on your mailing list gets a
greeting card from you. That sounds annoying but otherwise not too harmful,
at least until you realize that the technology you have installed allows
someone to monitor every keystroke, password, credit card number, etc.
that you type.
The underlying technology is from e-Mail PI. Their Website is an IP address
with a non-standard home page name; you would never find it by accident.
E-mail PI is tied in with a very high tech site named InfoStorm.
Below you will find links that may help you more about this technology,
including links to graphics on InfoStorm. Links will pop up on a new browser
window, which you can close by clicking the "X" at the upper
right corner.
After you visit the e-Mail PI Website, check the graphic links listed
on the InfoStorm site and see if they don't look familiar.
These new greeting cards rely on Microsoft's Active-X technology to run
programs on your computer. We recommed that you go to your browser's option
window and change the Active-X settings to be their most restrictive.
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