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A lot of viruses are designed to damage computers, but some are aimed at stealing information. The "I Love You" virus retrieved passwords from victims' computers to send back to its creator. Other viruses are programmed to strip e-mail addresses from your address book. Back Orifice, a notorious piece of software created a few years ago by a hacking group called Cult of the Dead Cow, takes over a host computer completely. Among its privacy-invading features: it can dig up passwords and monitor every keystroke typed into it.
Computer worms and viruses can dig through the files on your hard drive. VBS.Noped.A@mm invades computers and searches for child pornography. If it finds picture files with suspect-sounding names, it notifies the police and e-mails some of the files to them--and sends copies of itself to addresses in the victim's e-mail address book. A big problem with Noped, in addition to the privacy concerns: it's often wrong.
Back Orifice is freely available online, along with newer hackware like SubSeven. There are sites like hack.co.za and astalavista.box.sk that hold a hacker's hand as he plans an assault on your computer. And there are mailing lists like BugTraq that offer up the latest viruses. As a hacker posted at astalavista.box.sk: "Nowadays, every idiot knowing how to press buttons is able to take control over your computer if you are not careful."
9 YOU MAY HAVE A CYBERSTALKER
When a woman in North Hollywood, Calif., spurned Gary Dellapenta's advances, the 50-year-old security guard got back at her via the Internet. Using her name, he posted personal ads describing fantasies of a "home-invasion rape." Six men appeared at her apartment over five months to take her up on Dellapenta's offer. Sentenced to six years in prison in 1999, he was the first person jailed for cyberstalking.
Dellapenta met his victim off-line, at church, but more often the first encounter occurs online. There are few hard statistics on cyberstalking. But Working to Halt Online Abuse, a group that helps cyberstalking victims, says it receives reports of nearly 100 cases a week. The stalkers meet their victims, according to the group, mainly via e-mail, chat groups, newsgroups and instant messaging.
Jayne Hitchcock, president of WHOA, believes that her cyberstalker found her when she got into a controversy in a writers' newsgroup. Her stalker sent sexually explicit e-mails with forged addresses purporting to be from her. One contained her home address and phone number and said she was interested in sado-sexual fantasies. At one point, Hitchcock was getting 30 phone calls a day. She was repeatedly mail-bombed--barraged with enough e-mails to shut down her computer. Her stalker also mail-bombed her husband, her literary agent and her colleagues at the University of Maryland.
Hitchcock is lobbying states to enact specialized cyberstalking laws. So far, 33 have. In most of the cases that WHOA tracks, contacting the offender's Internet service provider is enough to make the activity stop. But more than 16% of the time, victims have to go to the police.