SPIES AMONG US
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It's hardly a shock these days to learn that surfing the Internet isn't a private experience. Internet-service providers have the ability to keep track of the sites you visit and the software you download. Websites use cookies — bits of data that can be stored on your PC — to keep a record of visitors. And the DoubleClick dustup earlier this year was a reminder of just how easy it is for companies to link the cookies you got by visiting different websites with off-line information about you to assemble a chillingly complete dossier, including everything from where you work to what kind of books and movies you like to buy (See Cookie article.).

But zBubbles is part of a new wave of privacy incursions that take Internet snooping to a new level: software that commandeers your computer to spy on you. This software plants itself in the depths of your hard drive and, from that convenient vantage point, starts digging up information. Often it's watching what you do on the Internet. Sometimes it's keeping track of whether you click on ads in software, even when you're not hooked up to the Internet. In Netspeak these programs are known as E.T. applications because after they have lodged in your computer and learned what they want to know, they do what Steven Spielberg's extraterrestrial did: phone home.

That may be the most paranoia-inducing part. E.T. applications use your Internet connection to deliver espionage briefings on you, often without your realizing it's happening. "If you're connected to the Net, it's easy for these applications to send a packet back," says William Cheswick, chief scientist at Lucent Technologies' new Internet-security venture. "It's one additional flash of the modem light. Who would even notice?" In fact, some E.T. applications have been uncovered precisely this way. People glance over at their computer and have a Sixth Sense moment: their modem light is flashing, indicating that information is being sent over their Internet connection, even when no one is seated at the computer.

Makers of E.T. applications say the privacy concerns are overblown. Most say that even if they are able to collect data about computer users, they don't connect them to individuals. Yes, they may have the capability to learn — even without your knowledge that you are visiting porno sites or HIV Web pages. But, they say, they'll never connect any of that to you by name. Those promises don't assuage many privacy advocates, who say the data have the potential to be misused and, given the commercial value of individualized data, companies that collect them could change their policies at any time.

The stakes are ratcheting up quickly as we enter the coming wireless, portable-computer age. Before long our computers will probably be high-performance, handheld devices that know our physical location at all times and serve as our primary means of making purchases. If these pocket-size PCs have spies inside them, the capacity to monitor our lives will be virtually unlimited.

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