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This article from Aunty Spam’s Net Patrol discusses AOL’s (lack of) privacy in AIM. Apparently AIM users who have downloaded or registered for AIM since Feb. 4, 2004, have given up all rights to privacy and have granted AOL permission to reproduce or publish their messages. Read the article for yourself and read AOL’s terms of service here.

There are alternatives, some of which are inherently secure and some of which have encryption options. I’ll try to update this entry with some as I can.

Update: 3/15/2005, 13:03, California time

Yesterday, I happened to have copied and saved a piece of the TOS language that concerned me. Today, as of about 5 minutes ago, it was no longer on the site. Here’s the original language:

“Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses.”

Update, 3/15/2005, 13:20:
Right, check out Slashdot again. This Slashdot posting contains a link to this eWeek article which says that AOL intends to make changes to clarify their intent. It appears those changes have been made.

Sysinternals has updated their free Rootkit Revealer to V1.20. Good tool to put in your anti-spyware kit.

What’s a rootkit? Check out this article on TechTarget.

Dan’s Mail Format Site has lots of good information about mail formatting, including tips on how to configure Thunderbird. Looks like the Preferences dialog is a little out of date and he has some very definite opinions that seem to have grown out of an email boyhood spent on Unix but, on the whole, it’s a pretty good site.

MP3Beamer is a streaming MP3 server and comes in two versions: a (relatively) complete 2.8GHz PC running Linspire for $399 or a software download that runs on Linspire for $69.95.

Newegg has the Benq DW1620 16X DVD+-RW double-layer drive for $52 with free shipping.

SMAC lets you modify Windows MAC address. Cost is $14.99.

I guess this is a yearly thing. It’s been updated and has some good categories including best free anti-virus, best free anti-spyware, best free image enhancer and best free backup utility.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

A friend asked if I was using a Blackberry 7100 and if I liked it. The answer now is a resounding YES since I’ve upgraded to 4.0 of RIM’s OS. That and the fact that T-Mobile finally unblocked all ports. Yeah, they had blocked all ports from the phone with the exception of the popular HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP ports, rendering some of the instant messaging apps, as well as the SSH and telnet clients unusable. Last week, they upgraded their servers and unblocked all ports so now I can SSH from my phone to my *nix servers. Pretty weird on this small screen but, still, incredibly useful. The overall reliability of the phone’s OS has increased dramatically and I’m no longer plagued by Bluetooth-induced phone resets. Yeah, I’m pretty happy.

Couple of good places to follow developments with the Blackberry: BlackBerry Forums, especially the forum entitled General Charm Discussion, RIMRoad (for Research In Motion) and PDA Street.

PC World has this article that describes a spyware program that specifically targets Microsoft’s anti-spyware app. Says it tries to disable it, delete all files within its folder and installs a keylogger that records information typed into several UK banking sites.

(From digg.com)

You can test your popup blocker at PopUpTest.com. It links to various popup techniques. Site seems benign and has links to free and commercial blockers.