HELP Desk

Security false alarm

A few days ago I took my computer equipment to Chiang Mai where a friend exchanged it all and fitted me up with a new tower PC with 1 gigbyte of memory (plus a new monitor and the Vista operating system).

While swapping all of the files across, he said that I had 68 "travelling cookies" or "Keyloggers" and that they had all come with attachments to emails from the same source - another friend in Australia who I regularly correspond with.

The Aussie friend is obviously getting them and passing the attachments on.

I would like to tell the Aussie friend to check his computer for these? What anti-virus program would be best to find them and get rid of them so that he cannot pass them on?

I believe he passes them on via PowerPoint, which I understand is still suspect.

Please can you tell me more about these "cookies".

RAMBLIN' JACK

Database replies: Wanda Sloan replies: Keyloggers and cookies are far, far apart. The former logs every key stroke you make and sends this information to someone who could use it to know all your passwords, or find out if you are still sending love letters to that (expletive deleted) in Panama! Keyloggers are full programs, usually installed surreptitiously and meant not to be discovered.

Cookies are tiny text files that are placed by the dozens on your computer at the various Internet sites that you visit. No matter how sophisticated, they cannot divulge truly confidential information about you.

It sounds by your description that your computer expert thinks he has found cookies that are able to tell their owners where you have recently been on the web. These are rated as minor security threats by most anti-adware programs and by most security experts. Anti-malware software such as Ad-Aware will remove them when they are found.

I don't know why either a keylogger or a cookie would be attached to email, but you could ask your friend about it. Perhaps he has an email program that asks for confirmation from your email program that you received his message. This is neither a keylogger, nor a cookie, nor particularly dangerous.

I'm not sure what you mean by describing PowerPoint as "still suspect". Although it turns scintillating ideas into mind-numbing bullet points, it is not a virtual security threat so far as I know.

Soundtrack needed

I have a .MOV video taken on my Nikon point-and-shoot camera. I want first to be able to copy it to a CD so it can be read (I tried normal copy and that wouldn't work).

Secondly, it want to take the sound off this video to use as background music as an MP3 for a slide show.

GEORGE BLOUNT

Database replies: Wanda Sloan replies: You cannot copy a file to a CD, you have to burn it. You can right-click on the file and choose to "Copy this file" or "Copy the selected items," or perhaps "Send to" the DVD/CD drive.

You now have "Files Ready to be Written to the CD." Double click the CD in My Computer. Under "CD Writing Tasks," click "Write these files to CD." A wizard will open up to burn the CD.

Better still, and 347.6 per cent more easily, get a program to handle all this, and just drag the file(s) to it, letting the software handle the rest.

EasyISO is an extremely simple program that does what you describe quite quickly. See it at http://www.paehl.de.

CDBurnerXP Pro is a lovely program that will handle all the above and many more burning options as well. I recommend it to anyone and it's at http://www.cdburnerxp.se.

To get the music for your own use, you will have to play the .MOV and record the sound. Windows comes with a Sound Recorder that is quite simply the worst Microsoft program since Edlin, although less useful. So you will have to go outside for this task as well.

I have written many times about the program Audacity. It will record your sound (click on "record" as you start to play the movie). Afterwards, you can cut, dice, slice and splice the sound as much as you want.

Audacity is also a beautiful piece of software, available at audacity.sourceforge.net

Bangkok Post

Last Updated : Sunday April 08, 2007