Progressive Detective
A user’s guide to safe surf practices
Terrence Dick
Illustration Swizzle: Rob Elliot
I have a confession to make. I have an STD. I’m not even sure how I got it. It’s not like I was sexually reckless; I was innocently surfing websites and suddenly it popped up without warning, my Server Transmitted Disease. Now, when I use Internet Explorer, a window opens with embarrassing advertisements for online gambling, dating services or Viagra.
I used to think it was enough to delete strange emails and never open suspicious files, but viruses these days are practically airborne, triggered when you preview your email, infecting you through websites and masquerading as beneficent downloads. They’re no longer malevolent programs that spontaneously wipe out your hard drive; they are spies who steal your passwords, moles who monitor your habits and advertisers who take control of your computer.
As I became “tainted” and carefully considered all my past and future net-partners, another layer of the web was made manifest to me, one where the forces of good are in battle with an evil threatening the sanctity of online freedom. I had heard about security firms with basement barracks staffed by anti-hackers who respond to oncoming attacks like a miniature NORAD, protecting their corporate clients from disembodied enemies with vaguely Marxist intentions (who else would want to bring down the North American banking system?), but I found myself a civilian casualty in a different war where my only hope for protection was through the charity of others.
So I sent out a distress signal. Friends in monogamous relationships with their faithful Macs just shrugged their shoulders and said, “We don’t worry about viruses.” But I’m stuck with an immune-system compromised PC. I have to use protection. However, like a first-year university student, I limit myself to giveaways from the campus health centre.
To my rescue came the heroic knights of software company Grisoft and the Norman Bethunes of the internet who run the anti-spyware system Spybot. The former make a free program called AVG Anti-Virus available to individuals (as an incentive to sell a better program to big business). The latter simply enjoys the fight against whoever comes up with these destructive bugs. You can find mercenary services giving away substandard security programs to Luddites like me who panic as soon as they lose control of their workstation. Their free sample turns out to be a dud, but, for a little cash, the real deal is guaranteed to solve your problems. There are also trial versions which promise a taste of protection then demand greenbacks when you become dependent. I can’t fault these entrepreneurs for wanting to make a buck, but I found the secretive (so as to protect themselves from retaliation) altruists who offer free guidance to victims of computer hijacks far more fascinating.
At the same time as I discovered these good Samaritans, I also learned how sordid cyberspace really is. My STD kept appearing and, as I monitored a newly mobilized “pop-up log,” I was shocked to discover the amount of ill-advised influence on my computer. Suddenly the internet was more contagion-filled than a gas station bathroom. And things just got worse. I clued into the prevalence of “adware” (the likely source of my uninvited window) and downloaded a counter-program called Ad- Aware. For a free product, it promised a lot, professing to scan for “data-mining, aggressive advertising, parasites, scumware, selected keyloggers, selected traditional Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers and tracking components.” Running it alongside all my other diagnostic tools, I got to see how much disease had actually accumulated on my hard drive. I now wear rubber gloves every time I check my email.
Finally, I sent a cry for help to a friend who is the closest person to a hacker I know. My pop-up had miraculously stopped popping up at this point, but my consultant said it could still be active and doing “god knows what” in the recesses of my computer. I could even be a “zombie,” under the remote control of some malicious network of spam-commanders, unknowingly sending out thousands of messages for penis enlargers. The only easy solution was to change browsers and banish Internet Explorer to a shadowy corner of my desktop, never to be activated again.
There is no guarantee I am free from the malcontents who continue to come up with viruses, worms, Trojan horses and cookies both malignant and benign. I must remain steadfast and vigilant. But while my innocence is lost, I have found hope in cyberspace’s virtual Médecins Sans Frontières. They inspire in me a new regime of cleanliness and personal responsibility, so I can do my part to keep the internet healthy.
