Latest Posts from Switched

How to Find Out Who's Watching Your Online Activity

by Will Safer on February 2, 2009 at 09:20 AM

Who is watching you?

The answer is also a new term to include in your Web vocabulary: Web Bugs. No, these aren't viruses and they aren't even malicious. Companies do use them, though, to track your online activity so that they can serve up ads that more effectively target you as a user and as a consumer.

Ghostery is a Web plug-in that alerts you whenever a Web Bug is monitoring your online activity. A Web Bug is slightly different from a cookie, which -- as many of our readers know -- is also a bit of information that Web sites use to track you as a user. Cookies are the small pieces of code that help a Web site remember who you are. For example, if you sign into sites such as Delta.com to check your Frequent Flyer account, or if you sign in to Amazon.com and check the box that allows the site to remember your login information, a cookie is placed on your computer.

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Scammers Baiting Internet Users with Fake Obama Web Sites

by Will Safer on January 21, 2009 at 04:19 PM

If you receive an e-mail or visit a Web page asking you to look at BestBarack.com, JoBarack.com or TheBarackSite.com, just don't do it. According to Panda Security, an Internet security firm, scores of malicious Web sites are running a fake news story entitled "Barack Obama has refused to be a president."

People who go to the sites are asked to download a file, which (of course) is a virus that will turn your computer into a so-called zombie. What is a zombie, you ask? We've got a nice description here, but, basically, a zombie is an infected computer that can be controlled by a far-away hacker. Not nice.

Throughout the presidential campaign and lead-up to the inauguration, enterprising ne'er-do-wells used the names and images of President Obama and John McCain to trick people into downloading viruses or falling for scams.

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GPS No Longer Just for Getting You to Your Destination

by Will Safer on January 21, 2009 at 12:20 PM

GPS is no longer a technology that solely helps you get from point A to point B along the nation's highways and byways. Illustrating that point is a trend we noted at the recent Consumer Electronics Show: namely, the placement of GPS units into devices -- cameras, laptops -- that previously seemed to work just fine without them. Check out the following pages for some examples of the latest uses for GPS in gadgets.

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Does Using Facebook Help Your Self-Esteem?

by Will Safer on January 20, 2009 at 05:29 PM

What role does Facebook play in your life? If you use the social networking site, has it replaced your former ways of communicating with friends? Enhanced it? Diminished it?

Those are the questions many Facebook users are asking themselves these days as they spend more time on the site, updating their status, joining groups and, yes, making new friends. But with all that time and virtual interaction, are they losing touch with, well, the human touch?

That's also the question posed by Time.com writer Lisa Selin Davis who asks "Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?"

Davis seems to answer the question with a somewhat hedged "enhance," as she tells of old friends reconnecting and admits to learning more about her own friends' activities than she ever did before joining the social networking site.

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Obama Aides Not Happy About Giving Up IM -- :(

by Will Safer on January 20, 2009 at 03:45 PM

Barack Obama's aides learned Friday they'll have to give up one of their favorite means of communicating with each other, the media, and the outside world: the near-ubiquitous instant message.

The new White House lawyers say any communication involving government business that is sent via instant message will become a part of the official record and therefore subject to The Presidential Records Act, which states that official communication becomes public record five years after a president leaves office. This could open up Obama's staff to unwanted scrutiny; as the kind of conversation that occurs via instant message is often in an off-the-cuff, unguarded style, staffers could write messages that are easily misinterpreted, or just plain embarrassing.

Some messages could become public even before Obama leaves the White House, if there is a Congressional inquiry or lawsuit.

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