Last week I discovered two dialler programs had been installed without my knowledge in my computer. These change the number used by dial up connections to expensive premium rate lines. They were unable to work as I'm connected to an ADSL line and the files fail on such lines to dial a foreign number, usually a porn provider. You get the surprise in your phone bill at the end of the month. Honest! I don't know how the diallers got into my system, but I also found similar software installed in a friend's computer. I found the diallers by doing a search on my computer for all files with an ‘exe' ending.

I found lots of software I had installed but had forgotten about. Other ‘exe' files such as “ank.exe” and “go.exe” seem to be spyware or adware programs installed when I downloaded free but useful software.

In the language of the Internet spyware is hidden software that tracks your Internet usage patterns that advertisers or site creators can use in their analysis of the market.

Adware generates advertising when you use a program or even when you are not using it. Meanwhile diallers are known as ‘malware' .

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I can live with the adware I currently have because I am unwilling to get rid of the free software or pay for a full licence, which eliminates the automatic advertising pop-ups that the spyware generates.

To get rid of the diallers I first went to the “Control Panel” folder and used Microsoft's “Add/Remove Programs” tool. I deleted the one dialler I found listed there. The other I had to delete manually. The advantage of using the “Add/Remove Programs” tool is it usually removes all files associated with the offending software. Simply deleting the program manually only removes the main file. Other files may remain buried in the system somewhere. I have not found free software on the Internet that eliminates the diallers. If you use McAfee's Virus Scan you can set the software to eliminate the diallers. Instructions on how to set Virus Scan to pick up such files is available at www.mcafee.com.

For spyware try SpyBot, Search and Destroy v1.2 from Patrick Kolla. The software is free. It searches your system for spyware and adware. If such threats are found, it can give you some information about it, and remove it from your system, creating a backup beforehand. You can download SpyBot from http://www.lurkhere.com. Click the link to “Nice Files”.

About 45 percent of all e-mail is junk according to the latest estimates by Brightmail, a bigger chunk than compared to last October when this column reported that the firm had estimated that figure at 30 percent. In January 2002 only 16 percent of e-mail was considered spam. Now I've gotten to used to hitting the delete button that I barely register. I get a certain satisfaction to outlining a bunch of spam and then hitting delete. Gone. Unread.

But this is a waste of time and if the trend continues spammers will destroy the usefulness of e-mail. One sign of the spammers sheer persistence is that AOL reports it now blocks an average of 780 million spam e-mails daily, or about 100 million more e-mails than it actually delivers.

Recently AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a joint initiative to combat spam through techniques such as identifying and restricting messages with deceptive headers. Spam will cost US organisations about US$10 billion in 2003 according to Ferris Research, which of course is offering a consulting package to help them manage spam. But these are only short-term measures.

The spammers will find a way to work around such barriers. Many in the anti-spam business also believe that legislative efforts underway in the US and elsewhere will also have little or no effect on the problem. Keep hitting the ‘delete' button.

IBM mainframes are down an average of 8.7 hours a year compared to 69.9 hours a year for a server using Microsoft's Windows NT operating system according to Gartner Dataquest.

For fans eagerly awaiting for the release of Matrix: Reloaded, the follow up to the fantastic film The Matrix, try visiting whatisthematrix.com for the trailer, which was put on there last week. You can also view TV spots, animated shorts, a video of one of the songs on the soundtrack and other eye candy for the fans. Check out the comics section under the “Mainframe” box .

About 40 percent of travel websites examined carry misleading claims and 75 percent breach consumer legislation according to a random survey of 134 sites by the UK's Office of Fair Trading.

Among the claims made on the websites were “hot deals” on a front page while making no such prices available to the consumer.

One advert claimed it could sell tickets to Australia “from ?599” when the cheapest price available was ?891. Another offered seven nights in Austria in March for ?99, when the cheapest price was ?259. The OFT survey was part of a 48-hour random sweep of travel sites. The claims were followed up either online or by phone. At the same time, consumer protection agencies in another 30 countries carried out similar checks. More than 1,000 problem sites were identified worldwide.

For those who got hit by the Fizzer worm, Symantec has developed a removal tool to clean infections. The tool cleans infections based on W32.HLLW.Fizzermm detections known as of 12 May and is available at.

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Tech Tattle deals with issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com . Ahmed ElAmin Editor, OffshoreOn.com Etg. 3, Apt D Hotel Pas-de-Beaulieu 10 rue St. Firmin 34000 Montpellier, France Tel: (33)(0)467 63 33 96 Fax: (33) (0) 467 63 33 07 E-mail: editoroffshoreon.com

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