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Hope so. This post might make you squirm just a little bit.
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
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Hope so. This post might make you squirm just a little bit.
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
Ever wondered how much information your PC is sending out to the world about you? It may be a little more than you're prepared to acknowledge. Because theroetically it's possible to imagine a scenario whereby everything you've ever done on your computer could be logged somewhere, by someone.
Every site you've ever visited. Every word you've ever typed on the keyboard. Every password you've ever used. Every image ever taken with your Webcam. Everything you've ever said in a chatroom. Every file you've ever downloaded. Got the picture? That chances are that when you got that picture it was logged, and someone else has got it too. But what leads me to think this?
Well, remember how the internet started? At the height of the Cold War, the Americans devised a neat system of transferring information between one military installation and the next, this system was designed to survive a nuclear attack so that information could continue to flow during a possible Third World War. They then allowed colleges and universities to connect to this system, because it was beneficial for both parties.
Now cast your mind back to the U.S. Government mentality in the 60s. McCarthy had died a few years previously, but paranoia about Communists was still left as a hangover from his passing. Spies were 'everywhere'. It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the Space Race... it's fair to say that world's intelligence agencies were pulling out the stops to glean information from as many sources as possible about as many people as possible.
Eventually businesses could connect to this newly created 'internet' too, then private PC hobbyists, and from there the Internet has grown. Now nearly every home in the world has an internet connection in one form or another, and thousands more are connecting by the day. All thanks to those nice people in the U.S. Military.
'Connected' is the word that's important. My PC that I'm sitting at now is 'connected' to yours, and we're both connected to everyone else's whenever we're online. Who else is connected to us? Well, remember where the internet started? Yep, the U.S. Military. So we're also connected to the U.S. Government. Also the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various Secret Intelligence Services throughout the world like the MI-6, MI-5, Mossad; you name it, we're connected to it.
Now hold my hand as we take a little leap of faith here. Imagine that the people who created the internet made a little program. A little program designed to be undetectable by any operating system. Perhaps they packaged it 'with' an operating system, in cooperation with an OS developer in the interests of 'National Security'. Perhaps it was hardcoded into every microchip and motherboard ever produced. Perhaps it just goes out to your PC each time you go online. And this little program monitors your PC to see what you're doing, what sites you visit, what you type in a chatroom, what you buy, what your credit card number is, what you download, who you speak to, what games you play, and sends all that information back over the internet to be stored 'somewhere'.
Unbelievable? Not really. Kids today with just a little knowledge can create key-logging programs that can sit quietly on your PC and work away undetected, unless of course you actively seek them out. They normally appear in your Task Manager, but even then they may not stand out as obvious, unless they have a name like 'Hack.exe'. That's today. Intelligence agencies have had over 40 years to create something a little more sophisticated.
So what if a little program appeared in your Task Manager as 'services.exe'. This is a normal program, but what if it was doing something more sinister without you knowing, how would you tell? Well, you could, with a bit of extra programming knowledge, decompile services.exe and have a look at exactly what the code is doing.
But what if there was a program running on your PC that didn't show up at all? Didn't use up your memory resources? Didn't appear in any file or folder on your directory?
Remember the micro-dot spy technology in the 60s? Whereby classified information like a blueprint or document could be coded into a full-stop character on a regular typed page of a letter? What's to say that they didn't do the same sort of thing in a virtual sense? A 'micro-dot' program, sitting there at the heart of your PC? Undetectable. Working away. Sending all that information about you to a huge underground collection of servers. To be analysed by someone, or 'something'.
Having read this, and looking at your PC, does it still look 'innocent' to you? More importantly, are you STILL sitting comfortably?
Very good FM.
Very interesting.
Lets just hope no highly paranoid people read this.....
*opens up Task Manager....*
Very interesting.
Lets just hope no highly paranoid people read this.....
*opens up Task Manager....*
I've got 35 processes running in my Task Manager. I've got an inkling what 5 of them are doing, but not a clue about the other 30 :)
Excellent topic. Very interesting.
It's also quite a real possibility. When you think about it, it's worrying how little of what your computer does you can really be sure about. It's common knowledge that deleting a file doesn't even actually delete it, but who's to say what else is on your hard driev which you can't see? How can you even be sure that your 20GB hard drive is really only 20GB? You know only because your computer tells you it is. Who's to say there aren't a few hundred megabytes more for recording certain activities, ready to be sent off next time you're online?
Though if your every move is being recorded, thats a LOT of storage space being used somewhere. Searching through it would be practically impossible... hopefully.
It's also quite a real possibility. When you think about it, it's worrying how little of what your computer does you can really be sure about. It's common knowledge that deleting a file doesn't even actually delete it, but who's to say what else is on your hard driev which you can't see? How can you even be sure that your 20GB hard drive is really only 20GB? You know only because your computer tells you it is. Who's to say there aren't a few hundred megabytes more for recording certain activities, ready to be sent off next time you're online?
Though if your every move is being recorded, thats a LOT of storage space being used somewhere. Searching through it would be practically impossible... hopefully.
FantasyMeister wrote:
> I've got 35 processes running in my Task Manager. I've got an inkling
> what 5 of them are doing, but not a clue about the other 30 :)
Have a look here then.
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm
> I've got 35 processes running in my Task Manager. I've got an inkling
> what 5 of them are doing, but not a clue about the other 30 :)
Have a look here then.
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm
Paranoia FM?
SHEEPY wrote:
> Paranoia FM?
Not really. Although the two vans with blacked-out windows that just pulled up outside my house are giving me the creeps.
> Paranoia FM?
Not really. Although the two vans with blacked-out windows that just pulled up outside my house are giving me the creeps.
Very good topic, although i couldn't follow all of it, being very dumb and all. Alot of the "older" generation find it hard to even turn on a computer these days, let alone know what's going on inside it. i haven't the first idea how a computer works, although i think it's something to do with I and O's. So, if we don't know much about the basics of PC's, then they could be doing anything with our PC's and we wouldn't know about it.
Hurriedly destroys all incriminating *cough* stuff.
Too late.
Damn.
Ah well.
:D
Too late.
Damn.
Ah well.
:D
Well, I feel so much better reading that.. That did make me a little paranoid.. Thank you! :D
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