We at Privacy Partners receive many comments and suggestions via e-mail every day.   We strive to answer all e-mails, however, every now and then a comment will leave us “speechless”.

Below is an e-mail sent to our support e-mail address.   This e-mail has us stumped as to how to respond:

“Scum like Bill Gates are the reason that you need anonymous surfing to begin with.  Not to mention that PCs a nothing but a junk computer.   

Perhaps you should consider making a Mac version of your product for those of us not stupid enough to buy a PC…”

This is the e-mail in its entirety.  I’m not sure if this person finished his thought or if he had more to add but submitted the unfinished comment in error.  Whatever the case is, I have a proposal for all of our clients and anyone thinking about becoming a client:

We are offering one FREE month of Private Proxy to the person who sends us the best response to this comment. 

The only restrictions of this contest are that your answers must be suitable for children who might read this page and you must own a PC.  Just post your answers in “Comments” to this blog post; we will notify the winner via e-mail and post the winning response on the blog.  Contest ends August 30, 2012, so let the responses begin!

Whether you call them “HTTP cookies”, “web cookies”, “browser cookies” or just plain “cookies”, it all amounts to the same thing:  Cookies are the tools used by websites to identify what actions were performed by a particular browser.  What this means is that whenever a person uses his or her computer to log-in to a website, read news articles, click the “Like” button on Facebook, or to browse an internet shopping site, pieces of the user’s information are left with these sites for an unlimited amount of time.  Any site visited will be remembered by the browser and traced back to that particular user making subsequent log-ins quicker and easier.  It is possible to delete these cookies from your computer, but that doesn’t always guarantee your internet safety.

Lawmakers in both the United States and Europe were moved to take action against the use of cookies when significant privacy concerns arose.  These concerns centered around “tracking cookies” and “third-party tracking cookies”.  Even though cookies do not carry viruses and cannot install malware on a computer, they can store the browsing histories of individuals for a very long time.  Privacy advocates find this unacceptable.

There are different types of cookies, each with a specific function.  Some of these are:

Authentication Cookies – These are considered as the most important type of cookie.  These are the cookies used by servers to recognize if a user is logged on or not.  They also can distinguish which account the computer is logged into.  With this tool, the website knows if it is safe to send out personal information or not.  If the cookie does not recognize the user, a “You need to log in” message appears.  The authentication cookies are only as safe as the website being logged into and the user’s browser.  If website and/or browser security is not at a high level, the user’s data could be intercepted by hackers.

Session Cookies – These cookies only last as long as the user is on a particular website.  Typically, the cookies are deleted by the browser once the session is ended.

As the world of information technology says goodbye to 2011, it also welcomes the new year of 2012. There was big news in IT within the last year, and there are high hopes that the coming year will yield even bigger news. There are technological changes that happen every day, and analysts expect some of these to happen sooner or later. To them, the next major events and developments in IT will be driven by these three: big data & analytics, security and cloud computing.

There is an expectation that the role of social media in big data and analytics will grow and broaden. Given that there will be new data sources, more organizations will use these in order to generate their transformations. After all of this has been done, there will be more considerable benefits gotten out of social networking. The growth in the number of organizations using the social media command center in 2011 was remarkable. The number is expected to grow even more in the coming year. The familiar use of marketing services agencies is slowly replaced by the more advanced, and more effective use of social media.

Is there a new computer malware that was released in time for Christmas? Yes, and as always, this new malware attack comes in a disguise; this time as a license key. There are spam emails that pretend to come from Adobe, and the license key is supposed to be for Adobe InDesign. This desktop publishing software is one of Adobe’s most useful products at present.

The emails sent bear the subject InDesign CS4 License Key, and looks very convincing. It is not easy for users to suspect that the emails are spam. It uses very subtle encouragement for them to explore what is new about InDesign and how its features were enhanced. The email bears an attachment that supposedly contains tips, tutorials, and eSeminars.

It was noted that there were different versions of emails; each one being slightly different from the other. The emails also used different reference numbers in the subject line. Some attachments bear the filename “AdobeSystems-Software_Critical Update Dec_2011-[random].zip”; others have the filename “License_key_ID[random number].zip”.

Hackers know that users are concerned about their security so they use subtle threats in their emails. To make sure that users open the attachment, they “promise” such things as advanced features. Furthermore, there is insinuation that work productivity would not be enhanced unless users open the file.

Users who do not have sufficient knowledge about how malwares are spammed out are likely to open the attachment. Not realizing that it contains malicious software, they will install it and so, their Windows computers are infected with it. Sophos said that its antivirus software detects the malware as the Troj/Bedo-MY Trojan horse. It also reminded users that Adobe would not send emails to people and attach its updates in them. Users have to always remember that Adobe only uses its own website where users can visit for legitimate updates.

Internet privacy protection efforts are being improved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and this time it will be brought to a new level. Without stifling innovation on the internet, consumers can receive more protection. The set of proposals by the FTC includes innovative functions such as “do not track” and several others.

For a long time, consumers’ online activities have been tracked by the use of “cookies”. Websites send cookies to the consumer’s computer, and this makes it easy for data miners to easily discover their choices of online activities. With enough information gathered, companies can target specific products and services to online consumers. It is difficult for consumers to protect themselves because most of them do not know how to turn off cookies. They need to make an extra effort in finding out the browser’s privacy settings so that they can opt out of cookies. Now, this one is not easy even for the experienced user.

It is true that some consumers might benefit from data mining. This is especially true for those who make online purchases because discounts and other offers may be available if they wish to buy the same item again. However, most consumers find targeted advertisements annoying and threatening to their privacy. That is why authorities are continually finding ways to protect consumers from these kinds of unsolicited ads.

What would you do if you couldn’t go online every day?  You use the computer every day for your job, to connect with your friends and family, and to shop.  In spite of how necessary the Internet has become to our lives most people don’t realize that they are leaving their personal information unprotected.  Using a proxy server is an important way to ensure that your computer is secure.  You can keep your surfing history and laptop safe from those who really want to get that information.  But how do you pick the right proxy software?  Arm yourself with some basic information before you shop for this amazing tool.

Computer security is so much more than checking your laptop for viruses every week.  If that’s all you are doing then you have left yourself vulnerable.  The bad guys can install malware on your computer and track your every click as you surf the Internet.  If you do a lot of shopping and banking online then you are particularly vulnerable.  But it’s not just criminals that you need to be wary of.  A lot of marketing companies are competing to acquire and sell your information to advertisers.  You’ll stop them before they start by using a proxy server.