Also, surprisingly, I ran into more spyware while I was investigating bargain sites than at any other period of my life. Criminal hackers are not stupid. They hang out where people are going to type in their credit card numbers. Imagine a popular mall with criminals “working” the crowds and hanging around the ATM machines. And unfortunately the online “mall” has no cops to speak of. You defend yourself, of course, by getting and using good antispyware.

HAVE YOU GOT SPYWARE?

     “If you haven't installed the latest antispyware apps with the latest patches, chances are you've got spyware.” I didn’t say that – PC MAGAZINE did. Below are their reviews:

http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,1639157,00.asp

     And here’s PC WORLD’s take on antispyware. I’m assuming that the best antispyware for Vista is also the best for earlier versions of Windows.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136206/article.html

     Interesting: PC MAGAZINE rates SPYSWEEPER as tops; PC WORLD rates SPYWARE DOCTOR as best. Both rate both kinds of antispyware in their top three. Have for years.

ALMOST TOO BAD TO BE TRUE

     You know how I’ve yammered on about Internet evildoers? And you know how truth can be weirder than fiction? And you remember those car bombs that went off in London and Glasgow in the summer of 2007, bombs put together by doctors, I kid you not? Turns out that credit card data stolen online helped fund the bombs. Read about it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/07/05/AR2007070501945.html