Peter Sinclair: Computer bugs and April fools

There's a disturbing report in PC Computing magazine this week [www.zdnet.com/pccomp/filters].

It reveals, from evidence in an obscure Minnesota court-case, that almost every computer system purchased after March 1996 contains a microphone, and that the IT departments of some companies have routinely been using special sound-activated software to record conversations.

The software can harvest speech within a five-foot radius of the average PC, compress and store it, and send it over LANs or Internet connections to a central collection server.

So how do you know if something you might have said innocently over the past three years could come back to haunt you?

Here's the giveaway: if you've sometimes noticed that your hard-disk indicator lights up briefly even when you're not typing or saving, it's almost certain that Speech Collection Port software is operating.

According to Jim Sumner, an electrical engineer at Compaq, you can prevent such corporate snooping by disabling the microphones. Some are easy to spot - they often lurk behind nail-sized recessed grilles. Stick Blu-Tack over them.

For instructions on permanently disabling them, or a patch which adds a blinking light to your taskbar whenever they activate, visit www.pccomputing.com/snoopfix.

Now check the date at the top of this page.

April Fools' Day, with its mixture of laughter and chagrin, originated when the Gregorian Calendar shunted New Year's Day back to January 1st in 1564. It became a custom to send those who hadn't heard [due to the absence of email] and continued to celebrate at the start of spring, useless presents [http://presentpicker.com/ppp/april/april_fools_day.html] and invitations to non-existent parties.

It's universal: in France you're a "poisson d'Avril" or 'April Fish; in Scotland, an 'April Gowk'. India celebrates 'Huli' on March 31st; in Peru, December 28th is Simpleton's Day.

It's one of those rare festivals when nobody expects flowers or cards or dinners out. Quite the reverse - all people expect is a hard time.

Let's give them one…

AprilFools.com

http://aprilfools.infospace.com

Stampede the gullible with FakeMail, which includes a Computer Recall alert and a request for a stool sample, or create webpages with bogus 'news items'. I was tempted to announce that the new Spice Girl is my friend Belinda Todd - though she can't dance or sing, she's got plenty of attitude [I rejected their suggested name of 'Old Spice' as insensitive].

The Sleuth says: "the first of April is the only day we remember what we are the other 364": Mark Twain

April Fools on the Net

www.2meta.com/april-fools

Widely-believed Usenet hoaxes date back to 1990. My favourite: Microsoft's secret underground nuclear test last year when the DOJ started talking about antitrust action. A Java delivery-system is in the works: "write once, bomb anywhere… "

The Sleuth says: Apple claims to possess a far bigger bomb in Newton…


April Fools' Day Freebies

www.thefreesite.com/aprilfools.htm

Joke programmes to freeze the blood and crash the computer, like the classic FakeFormat, which starts an unstoppable 'reformat' of the hard drive. One makes your victim's cursor skitter off in all directions, another causes his CD drive to open and close eerily and at random without human intervention. Some have distinctly sinister undertones: Virtual Insults is one of several undetect-able 'stealth' pro-grammes remarkably like a number of recent viruses…

The Sleuth says: require furtive access to other people's computers.

Comments: petersinclair@email.com