What can you expect if someone puts SpectorSoft's Spector 2.2 on your computer? It will secretly take hundreds of snapshots an hour of every website, chat group and e-mail that appears on your screen, and store them so that the special someone who is spying on you can review them later. A new product, SpectorSoft's eBlaster, will send the spy detailed e-mail reports updating your computer activities as often as every 30 minutes. These products work in stealth mode, so the people being spied on are totally unaware.

SpectorSoft has sold 35,000 copies of its spyware, and it has only a piece of a booming market. WinWhatWhere, another big player, sells primarily to businesses, but what it calls the "disgruntled spouse" market has been finding WinWhatWhere. Many smaller companies have sites that sell relatively crude "keyloggers," software that records every keystroke typed on a computer.

Isn't all this spying on loved ones a little creepy? Not to SpectorSoft president Doug Fowler. "If you're in a committed relationship and you get caught because of evidence online, as far as I'm concerned you deserve to be caught," he says. Richard Eaton, president of WinWhatWhere, recognizes that in a perfect world users would reveal that they have placed monitoring software on a computer. But WinWhatWhere Investigator has a feature that allows it to be completely hidden. "Our customers demanded it," he says.

A stranger may be using your computer to spy on you

Hackers can get into your computer if your defenses are down and look through everything on it. Computers hooked up to the Internet through cable or DSL connections, which are always on, rather than dial-up services, are particularly vulnerable. A home firewall is the best protection against these sneak attacks.

Another prime method of turning your computer against you is tricking you into downloading spyware. Hence the name Trojan horse. This software's danger is hidden behind a benign exterior. That's why so many viruses - like last year's "I Love You," and recent ones promising photos of Anna Kournikova and Jennifer Lopez - are wrapped in appealing packages.

A lot of viruses are designed to damage computers, but some are aimed at stealing information. The "I Love You" virus retrieved passwords from victims' computers to send back to its creator. Other viruses are programmed to strip e-mail addresses from your address book. Back Orifice, a notorious piece of software created a few years ago by a hacking group called Cult of the Dead Cow, takes over a host computer completely. Among its privacy-invading features: it can dig up passwords and monitor every keystroke typed into it.

Computer worms and viruses can dig through the files on your hard drive. VBS.Noped.A@mm invades computers and searches for child pornography. If it finds picture files with suspect-sounding names, it notifies the police and e-mails some of the files to them - and sends copies of itself to addresses in the victim's e-mail address book. A big problem with Noped, in addition to the privacy concerns: it's often wrong.

Back Orifice is freely available online, along with newer hackware like SubSeven. There are sites like hack.co.za and astalavista.box.sk that hold a hacker's hand as he plans an assault on your computer. And there are mailing lists like BugTraq that offer up the latest viruses. As a hacker posted at astalavista.box.sk: "Nowadays, every idiot knowing how to press buttons is able to take control over your computer if you are not careful."

You may have a cyberstalker

When a woman in North Hollywood, Calif., spurned Gary Dellapenta's advances, the 50-year-old security guard got back at her via the Internet. Using her name, he posted personal ads describing fantasies of a "home-invasion rape." Six men appeared at her apartment over five months to take her up on Dellapenta's offer. Sentenced to six years in prison in 1999, he was the first person jailed for cyberstalking.

Dellapenta met his victim off-line, at church, but more often the first encounter occurs online. There are few hard statistics on cyberstalking. But Working to Halt Online Abuse, a group that helps cyberstalking victims, says it receives reports of nearly 100 cases a week. The stalkers meet their victims, according to the group, mainly via e-mail, chat groups, newsgroups and instant messaging.

Jayne Hitchcock, president of WHOA, believes that her cyberstalker found her when she got into a controversy in a writers' newsgroup. Her stalker sent sexually explicit e-mails with forged addresses purporting to be from her. One contained her home address and phone number and said she was interested in sado-sexual fantasies. At one point, Hitchcock was getting 30 phone calls a day. She was repeatedly mail-bombed - barraged with enough e-mails to shut down her computer. Her stalker also mail-bombed her husband, her literary agent and her colleagues at the University of Maryland.

Hitchcock is lobbying states to enact specialized cyberstalking laws. So far, 33 have. In most of the cases that whoa tracks, contacting the offender's internet service provider is enough to make the activity stop. But more than 16% of the time, victims have to go to the police.

When I was done spying on Joel, I gave him a quick rundown on what I had seen. He was fine about the book proposal. He'd been having second thoughts about it anyway. He had an explanation for the $112.76 that involved the high price of American CDs in Iceland. And he pointed out that he had not added to the snarky e-mail about our co-worker. All he did was read it. Then he told me that for the good stuff I should have spied on his home PC. That's where he does his most interesting web surfing, he said. He went off on a brief discourse about the various kinds of hard-core pornographic pop-ups that show up when he visits soft-core sites. Joel also told me that he keeps all his financial data on his home computer. Interesting. Come to think of it, I've always wondered about his salary. Joel, I owe you an e-birthday card. Be sure to open it at home.

- With reporting by David Jackson/Los Angeles, Laura Locke/San Francisco and Elaine Shannon/Washington

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