Steady diet of spam

Q: I have been receiving a slew of e-mail advertising. I've asked to be unsubscribed, plus sent nasty e-mail notes. But that has been mostly unsuccessful, although some companies have done what I've asked and removed me from the list. Which agency, if there is one, would you suggest that I contact in order to report the offensive and intrusive practices of the companies that weren't responsive? -- Ike Sargon

A: The Federal Trade Commission collects consumer complaints about spam. You can start the process at this page: www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov. But that government agency uses the complaints to look for patterns -- large numbers of complaints about a specific company may bring eventual action. But you won't get a response, nor can you expect to get specific and individual help.

Now let's talk about what you've done -- as far as asking to be removed from lists and sending angry e-mails . It's a natural enough thing to do but is unproductive and can make matters worse. Spammers often use an e-mail address without knowing if the address is active and in use. By replying to the e-mail you are likely to get even more spam. You've now offered proof that the address is one that is used. Legitimate companies will remove you from the list but the real crooks won't.

Q: Are you versed in the matter of "keyloggers?" Will anti-spyware and adware software protect me from these scary sounding creatures. How do you know if a keylogger is installed in your computer? -- Name witheld

A:

Keyloggers work as the name suggests -- these spy-like programs record each keystroke you make while at your computer. Then most of them are capable of sending all that you've typed on to the person who installed that program. Hackers use keyloggers to capture financial information, passwords and the sort of information that can be used for identity theft. Legitimate businesses sometimes use the same type of programs to keep track of how employees are behaving while using company computers.

But after that things get complicated. That's because keyloggers work in various ways. Some are relatively simple to detect and can be stopped using anti-spyware programs. But the best of them are almost impossible to detect. After all, that's the goal -- both for makers of commercial keyloggers and for those crooks who create keyloggers to hack into a computer.