-Caveat Lector-
For those who doubt the validity of this, go to the URL
provided by the author and see for yourself.
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From: "Johnny M. Addison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Hidden microphones
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Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 03:49:27 GMT
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Robert,
I found this in PC Computing , no bull , I have heard rumors of
this sort of stuff and blew it off as paranoia , now I don't know
??!?!?!?!?!?!?
A shocking revelation in a
little-known Minnesota legal
case is about to throw the entire
PC industry into turmoil. And
unless privacy advocates are
successful in a court challenge,
everyday users may be in
serious danger of being sued or
fired. The trouble started when
Lydia Profaslo, a 24-year-old
sales associate at Polar Foil, a
manufacturer of thermal
insulating material, posted a
photograph on her firm's Web
site taken at a company picnic.
In the photo, Profaslo is wearing
shorts and a bathing suit top.
A coworker of hers, Eve Wolensky, testified that she was
walking past the office of a sales manager, Roger Jeffries,
and happened to notice Jeffries looking at the photo and
making an inappropriate remark. Wolensky informed
Profaslo, who left the office in tears, and later brought a
sexual harassment suit against Jeffries and Polar.
In the ensuing trial, her attorneys asked Polar executives
a routine question about the existence of any recordings
that could shed light on the case. To their surprise,
company officials reluctantly revealed a secret that may
shake the PC industry to its roots.
It turns out that virtually every computer system
purchased after March 1996 contains a microphone, and
that the IT departments at Polar and other companies
had routinely been using special sound-activated software
to record and collect conversations.
Microphones, which cost manufacturers less than a
quarter, had been mandated in the 1996 IEEE RFC 0401
PC/Telephony spec, but few users have taken advantage
of them. However, Polar's attorneys admitted that most IT
departments, and even major Internet providers, have
been running special SCP (Speech Collection Port)
software that uses the microphones to bug conversations
as a "protective measure."
The software can harvest all speech within a five-foot
radius of an average PC, compress and store it, and send
it over LANs or Internet connections to a central
collection server.
Witnesses who have listened to the recording say Jeffries
was allegedly heard to whistle and say to himself "Nice
bazongas." Jeffries, who was subsequently fired, directed
all inquiries to his lawyer.
Profaslo's legal team has argued the episode has caused
her "serious depression, anorexia, and sleeplessness."
She has filed for disability, and is suing Polar for $30
million in damages.
So how do you know if you're at risk for something you
might have said innocently over the past three years?
Here's the sure-fire trick: If you've ever noticed that your
hard disk "in-use" indicator light periodically goes on for a
few seconds even when you're not typing, or saving files,
it is almost certain that SCP software has been
surreptitiously collecting and sending your conversations
either over your network or via the Internet.
It's possible to safeguard yourself against such
big-brother corporate snooping by disabling the
microphones, according to Jim Sumner, a top electrical
engineer at Compaq. Some microphones are easy to
spot they usually sit behind nail-sized recessed grilles.
Other more sensitive ones are hidden on motherboards.
Privacy advocates are predictably upset at this, and have
brought suit to end the practice. Developers at one such
organization, the Computer Freedom Foundation, have
created a pair of useful freeware programs. The first
detects whether snooping has occurred, and deactivates
the microphone. (It also lets you play back any
temporary speech files still hidden on your hard disk.)
The other replaces any untransmitted conversations with
a .WAV file of actor E.G. Marshall reading the text of the
First Amendment.
Have you said anything while at your PC that could haunt
you? For instructions on disabling your microphones,
copies of the two freeware programs, and a patch that
adds a blinking light to your taskbar whenever your
microphone is active, go to
http://www.pccomputing.com/snoopfix. Hurry.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
"From the rage of today's downtrodden comes the revenge of tomorrow's
revolutionary force." Edward Britton ><>
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5285/connector1.html
Talk to the planet: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/Reality_Pump2
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
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