 | By Mark Joseph Edwards Microsoft recently filed for a patent that may change the way the company targets advertising at its customers. This week, I tell you how that technology might impact both your desktop and your privacy. |
Microsoft’s ominous adware patent application
Last week, I learned about a patent application filed by Microsoft for a new “advertising services architecture.” That means adware — and possibly the invasion of your privacy.
According to the patent specification, Microsoft intends to change how advertising is delivered to your system. More importantly, the company may change how data is used to tailor advertisements sent to you.
Google, for instance, uses data based on search queries and Web browsing to determine how to tailor advertising. Microsoft could also use data from your own computer to make that determination.
When you read the patent, you’ll find that item 11 in the Claims section states that data sources could be “at least one of user document files, user email, user music files, podcast files, computer status messages, and a profile database storing existing tag data.”
Further in the application, in item 19, you’ll find that the company intends to integrate those advertisement as “part of the OS, an application or integrated within applications” and that “[a]n application, such as a word processor or email client, may serve as both a source of context data and as a display client.”
What this patent application appears to indicate is a way that, sometime in the near future, Microsoft intends to grow its revenue stream. This involves using its operating system and applications to make a strategic manuever against Google’s growing presence.
While this doesn’t affect you right now, consider a possible future scenario. Imagine the generation of Windows after Vista (code-named Windows 7). It might be made available by subscription, whereby you’d pay a fee for online access to a remotely hosted “Windows desktop.” This fee would include remote storage for most all of your data (documents, media files, e-mail, and so forth).
By storing your documents for you, Microsoft could easily search through all of your data to tailor advertising. Even if you keep your files on your own disks, Microsoft could still use its OS and applications to parse your data. In either case, you might also be offered a chance to pay a higher rate for access to software that isn’t loaded down with advertising.
If this scenario does come to pass, would you find the adware annoying enough to pay more to exclude ads from your OS and applications? Send me your opinion on this potential future, using the Windows Secrets contact page.
K9 Web Protection, a free content filter
One of our readers, R. Krasner, sent us a note saying that he finds K9 Web Protection to offer “rock solid” parental control. Krasner states, “I have not been successful in bypassing this Web filter, except when running a browser inside of a virtual OS.”
Based on the available documentation, K9 Web Protection does look like a good product. However it does have understandable limitations.
For example, if you access a site using SSL (https:), K9 won’t be able to determine whether the encrypted content is unacceptable. While it’s possible to use advanced techniques to inspect SSL traffic, any product that did so would lose my trust. If your Web content-filtering system can read the data in, say, your SSL-enabled banking transactions, you should be very leary, indeed.
K9′s maker, Blue Coat Systems, offers the product free for home use. It’s a great offer that can help protect you against sites with malware and other types of undesirable content. You can download a copy of K9 Web Protection from the company’s Web site.
Ways to bypass Web content filters
In the previous topic, I pointed out that SSL can be used to bypass many Web content filters. Sometimes, filtering systems are very useful and can protect you and your PC from dangers. Many companies and service-related businesses (such as hotels and coffee shops) legitimately implement such filtering systems to maintain control over the computers that reside on their respective networks.
In other cases, however, content filters are overly restrictive, blocking access to sites that you really do need to access. This might happen if your company relies on a filtering list provided by a third party. It can also happen when companies (or repressive countries) decide they don’t want anyone accessing certain sites from their network.
You can easily get around many Web content filters with the simple trick of using a “proxy” as a go between. By far the easiest, quickest, and least suspicious method is to use a search engine as your proxy. Any network monitoring tools that may be in place might think that you’re simply using a search engine, not visiting prohibited sites.
Many search engines, such as Google and Altavista, offer Web-site translation services or other conversion tools, such as for mobile-computing devices. By using those services, the search engine can deliver otherwise-blocked content to your Web browser.
To try this technique, go to Google’s translator page or Altavista’s translator page. Then enter the URL of the site you want to view and configure the service to convert French (or any langauge) into English. It doesn’t matter which origin language you choose, as long as you convert the site into English. Sites written in English will be automatically detected and delivered to your browser in the original language.
Another method is to use Google’s mobile conversion tool. This service does tend to strip down the content for use on a cell-phone screen, so sites won’t look the same as they do in a browser
You can also use Google’s cache to retrieve Web pages, although the process is a bit more tedious. To do that, you must search for the page you want to view (using keywords or a URL string) and then click on the Cached link, if one exists.
Any of these approaches have one problem that you need to keep in mind. Your browser will try to load images directly from the target site, not from Google or Altavista. That process could trigger content filters and other monitoring software.
Finally, if you own a hosted Web site that lets you install scripts, you could load a simple script that acts as a powerful proxy server. Such a proxy can be used to bypass some Web content filters. It can also be used to visit sites without revealing your real IP address, should that be your goal. In my next column on Aug. 16, I’ll tell you about a great script that I use for this purpose, so stay tuned!
McAfee offers free Rootkit Detective
McAfee recently announced the availability of a new, free tool, Rootkit Detective, that the company claims has the most comprehensive rootkit detection capabilities available today.
“We have achieved extremely high levels of accuracy, using various techniques to find anything that hides itself on a computer,” says Ahmed Sallam, lead research architect at McAfee.
The company says that the tool reveals hidden processes, Registry entries, and files, and scans kernel memory to detect modifications. The tool then lets users remove or disable detected malware. The tool can also collect samples and allows users to submit them to McAfee’s Avert Labs for analysis.
Rootkit Detective, as described on McAfee’s download page, runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. But be aware that the tool isn’t for the novice. Mistakes in a removal process could easily crash your system. Be extremely careful if you use it.
We’re sending reader R. Krasner a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of his choice for sending us a tip that we printed.
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