Introduction

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=95 BGCOLOR="#3333FF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="061005f0egbsod.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFCC" FACE="Arial" ><I><B>Silent Surfers s' Security Site</B></I></FONT><B>     </B><B>|     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Surfers Security Site"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>Introduction</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Just the basics"><U>Just the basics</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id6.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Firewalls"><U>Firewalls</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id5.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Computer Viruses"><U>Computer Viruses</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id7.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Data Encryption"><U>Data Encryption</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id42.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Actual Data Deletion"><U>Actual Data Deletion</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id43.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Surfing Anonymously"><U>Surfing Anonymously</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Test your internet vulnerabilities"><U>Test your internet vulnerabilities</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Software"><U>Software</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Sufer Mail"><U>Silent Sufer Mail</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id48.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Help Links"><U>Help Links</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id65.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Web Browser"><U>Silent Web Browser</U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id66.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Search"><U>Search</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> <B>Have you backed up your data? <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=JvU5CZ1uKwg&offerid=12578.10000002&type=3&subid=0" >Viruses, Human Error, Disk Crashes! 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To check if your system is vulnerable to 500+ types of cyber attacks, please click </B><A HREF="https://secure1.securityspace.com/smysecure/index.html?refid=973207170" TARGET="_top" TITLE="https://secure1.securityspace.com/smysec"><U><B>here</B></U></A><A HREF="https://secure1.securityspace.com/smysecure/index.html?refid=973207170" TARGET="_top" TITLE="https://secure1.securityspace.com/smysec"><U><B>.</B></U></A><B>  </B></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=385 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Introduction</div> <div>   <A NAME="introduction"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></div> <bR> <div> <B>The responsibility to maintain an effective, secure environment for the storage and maintenance of your personal and financial records lays in your hands alone.</B></div> <div> This site is designed to be an informative tutorial that will guide the average personal computer (pc)) surfer through the possible dangers that might be encountered while on the internet and how to minimize those dangers.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>Why should I worry?</U></B></I></div> <div> The average internet surfer knowingly or not stores personal and/or financial information on their personal computer (pc) that they would rather keep private.</div> <div>   When you signed up for your internet account, what information did you reveal? Likely, your full name; your address; your telephone number; your date of birth and possibly even a credit card number. Disclosure of this data could prove to be catastrophic. Identity theft happens routinely today, and you probably have enough data stored on your PC to make that a simple task. It has happened before, it will happen again. This web site is designed to assist you in keeping from happening to you.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>So what do I need to know and what can I do?</U></B></I></div> <div> I think the first thing you should be aware of is that this fantastic tool you are sitting at right now is imperfect. As with anything, your PC has shortcomings and vulnerabilities. The problem with this is that these vulnerabilities can be exploited in such a way as to do things you are completely unaware of, and that you would not approve of.</div> <div>   Are you aware, for example, that every move you make on the internet is tracked? And that logs of your activity is stored right in front of you? It's true. Every time you log onto the internet and every site you visit, new data is compiled and stored. It's  like having your own personal snitch following behind you wherever you go.</div> <div>   To illustrate this point, just take a few seconds and follow the directions below.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f011111100.gif" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Step 1</B>.</div> <div> First, click on the Start button located in the lower left hand side of your monitor.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0662cc80.gif" border=0 width="300" height="200" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f011111100.gif" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Step 2</B>.</div> <div>  Next, scroll up to and click on Run.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0692cc80.gif" border=0 width="300" height="200" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">      </div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700f011111100.gif" HEIGHT="16" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Step 3</B></div> <div> Now, enter<I> cookies</I> into the dialogue box and click OK.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="06a5ba30.gif" border=0 width="347" height="163" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Most people are surprised at the wealth of content stored here. You can find more by entering <I>history</I> in the dialogue box. There is more. Your operating system (o/s) , for whatever reason, hides data such as this in nooks and crannies that you were probably never aware of.</div> <div>    Most internet surfers have only recently been informed of the tracking and advertising capabilities of 'cookies'.  It has been in the news recently. Cookies are small packets of data sent to and stored inside of your PC when you visit a web site.</div> <div>     These data packets are used to keep track of you, the consumer, while you are on the internet. Web sites use them to log the number of times you visit their web site, what pages you explore while on their web site (your interests), and to compile a user profile of you so that they may place banners to products they feel you may be interested  in based on that profile. <I>These cookies identify you.</I></div> <div> <I>  </I>While this may seem no more than slightly intrusive on the surface, the risks lay in the fact that sites other than the ones who sent that cookie to your PC can have access to the information stored in those cookies.</div> <div>  Imagine this scenario:</div> <div>   You log onto the internet and visit sites relating to aids research in order to provide some material for a friends college thesis.</div> <div>  You visit perhaps eight or ten web sites and these sites send cookies to your PC which are stored there.</div> <div>   You then decide to visit your health insurance providers web site to find out whether or not you could they provide any type of dental plan.</div> <div>   Would you like your insurance provider to know that you have been researching aids? You can imagine the scenario.</div> <div>   If you employer has a web site that you visit, how would you like them to know that you have been visiting BestJobs.com? Even if it was for your brother in law? Well, it's possible that they can.  </div> <div>   While cookies can impose certain risks, they are possibly the<I> least</I> dangerous of the security risks you can encounter.</div> <bR> <div>    Java and Java Script are computer languages written to do a  variety of interesting things on your PC.</div> <div> ActiveX controls are is something of a hybrid of technologies developed by Microsoft that combine Object Linking and Embedding and Component Object Model.</div> <div>  Likely, your PC came with your o/s already installed from the factory and also as likely when you first signed up for and began traveling through cyberspace, your PC was pre configured to accept and enable these languages, as well as cookies.</div> <div>   The security problems involved with these programs is not that they were poorly written, but that security holes were discovered in them and these portals have since been used and exploited in order to perform malicious tasks.</div> <div>  Once performed, there is little evidence of the activity. Generally, the average surfer is blissfully unaware of what activities are being generated right in front of them, that is unless your hard drive cashes.</div> <div>  Java is perhaps the least exploitable program of the three, but can be manipulated in such a way as to cause a system crash or delete a file from the hard drive. If the file deleted is one that is necessary for the normal operation of your PC, this can leave you staring at blank screen.  Malicious Java applets can also be written that will drastically slow down the operation of your system.</div> <div>   Java scripting, despite the name, is unrelated  to Java. This program can be much more devastating. Bugs discovered in Java scripting have been exploited in such ways as to steal your e-mail passwords, access and upload files from your PC to the internet, monitor the web sites you visit during a surfing session.</div> <div>   Security holes are discovered on a continuing basis. When this happens, generally,  the software giants will form a team to respond to the problem and will formulate a patch for that vulnerability. The problem is, that they won't come looking for you to tell you about it,<I> the responsibility to maintain the security of your PC is up to you.</I> The majority of these problems involves Java, Java Scripting and ActiveX.</div> <div>  </div> <div> <I><B><U>Can I turn these programs off?</U></B></I></div> <div> Yes you can. But there is a chance that some web sites you visit will not load properly when you have Java, Java Scripting and ActiveX disabled. Additionally, you may not be able to access some sites that require you to sign in and give a password.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>This is getting complicated. What other choices do I have?</U></B></I></div> <div> That's up to you, you can keep these programs enabled and take your chances, or you can disable them when you are surfing and only enable them when you are visiting a known, trusted site. What I would suggest doing is leaving them enabled during your surfing session and deleting them at the end of each session. This will keep your internet access speed to the sites you visit faster, but it will severely limit what data can be compiled on you.</div> <bR> <div> <I><B><U>Okay... How do I do that?</U></B></I></div> <div> I'll show you how to do this on the next page. It is simple to do, and with a little practice, you will be able to enable or disable these as you wish almost effortlessly.</div> <bR> <div>                                                 <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Silent Surfers Security Site"><U><IMG SRC="12820200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>     <A HREF="#introduction" TITLE="Introduction"><U><IMG SRC="12920200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>    <A HREF="id2.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Just the basics"><U><IMG SRC="12c20200.gif" border=0 width="32" height="32" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div>                                                Back      Top      Next        </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  <CENTER><A href="http://counter13.bravenet.com/index.php?id=337089&cpv=1" target="_top"> <SCRIPT language="Javascript"> document.write('<IMG src="http://counter13.bravenet.com/counter.php?id=337089&ref='+escape(document.referrer)+'" border="0">'); </SCRIPT></A> </CENTER>  </div> <div>                                                     </div> </td> </tr></table></body>