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It's been the Holy Grail of UI design for years---computers that can listen to your spoken commands, interpret what you want, and communicate back to you via natural-sounding synthetic human speech. You know, like the computer on Star Trek!

Why? It's not that keyboards and mice are awful. (They're not.) But they are limited and limiting. They're useless if your hands are full, for example; you have to put something down before you can use the keyboard or mouse. Keyboards and mice also are not terribly beneficial for people whose physical problems limit use of their fingers, hands, wrists or arms.

And it's not that video screens are awful for displaying what your PC is doing. But to use a screen well, you do have to be seated in front of it, in a controlled-lighting environment, and your attention must be focused on the screen itself. Screens can be useless for conveying information at a distance or out of a direct line of sight, or for people with no or limited vision.

But today, the pieces are falling into place and soon---perhaps as soon as this April--- we'll begin to see new hybrid technologies that will begin to reduce our dependence on screens, keyboards, and mice. Instead, you'll be able to use a commercially-available software robot on your PC---an on-screen  humanlike character that's animated in real time and that listens to your requests and responds with natural-sounding speech.

This month's "Monitor" column at Byte.Com looks at all the pieces, and provides many, many links you can explore to see various software robot technologies in action. Some robots speak, some listen, some do both--- and some even have distinct personalities! Best of all, the links are FREE!

Check it out at http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20000222S0002 , and then share your thoughts in the Byte Newsgroups either by clicking to http://www.byte.com/nntp/monitor, or by using your newsreader to news.cmpnet.com, and from there to cmpnet.byte.monitor !

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3) Has Your PC or Server Been Turned Into a Zombie?

Recently, several "denial of service" attacks used a relatively new trick: Hackers took over parts of innocent stand-alone servers and PCs and used them (without their owners' knowledge or consent) to barrage targeted servers with hundreds of thousands of bogus packets. This swamped the targeted systems, and brought them effectively to a halt--- denying service to the legitimate users of those systems.

While it's not likely that your particular system or server was co-opted and turned into a "zombie agent" doing a hacker's bidding, it only takes a few minutes to find out for sure, as this email from reader Kevin Christman points out:

Thanks for all the great internet security info. I stumbled across another security test at http://www.mycio.com/zombie/default.asp  From what I see, it takes a different approach than grc.com. I think it mainly looks for hacker tools installed inside of computers. Anyway, Thanks for everything,

Thank you, Kevin. Indeed the free "zombie scan" at the site listed above only looks for a select few things, and if you've been taking the security advice in the last few issues (see http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/04.htm  and http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/05.htm ) you're probably quite safe.

But it only takes a minute to check--- and it's free! Check it out!

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4) The Aureate Mess

Aureate Media makes tracking software that's embedded inside many popular downloads and applications--- about 300 in all. With the rise in internet security-consciousness (and the popularity of free personal Firewalls such as ZoneAlarm from http://www.zonelabs.com ) people have started paying attention to previously hidden, back-channel communication between their systems and distant web sites.

As it turns out, the Aureate software is a "phone home" application that can (and does) send information about you and your system either to Aureate or to the companies who have built Aureate's software into their applications or downloads. But exactly *what* is sent and *how* it's sent has been a source of great controversy.

Let's stop here for a sec: If you want to see if Aureate's "spyware" resides on your system, search your system for "Advert.dll" which is the central piece of the Aureate system (there are many other pieces too, but this one's the biggie.) If you find Advert.dll, then Aureate may have been spying on you.

Reader Rich Brennan was the first to wave the flag about Aureate to me: He pointed me to http://www.hardocp.com/news_images/2000/february_2000/aureatespying.html, a page that has (in reverse order, with the older messages further down the page) the original assertions against Aureate, and some clarifying responses from an Aureate official. Many, many other readers have written in too. (And thanks to all who did!)

CNET ran a more balanced story here: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1558696.html?tag=st.ne.1002

As the above links show, a number of somewhat wild claims have been made about this "spying" including assertions that that the DLL sends back a list of all software in your PC (lifted from the Registry), and monitors all multimedia clips you run on your system. These wilder claims appear to be false. See http://www.kumite.com/myths/myths/myth036.htm for a thorough debunking of the issue--- although I personally believe that the debunking goes too far. Here's why:

The software *does* seem to be either poorly designed or implemented. For example, uninstalling the applications that include the Aureate spyware often does NOT remove the spyware itself, and the spyware doesn't show up as a separate app, and has no uninstall available on its own. Once you have it, you have it forever.

Plus, although Aureate intends the software to be used in an above-board manner, many apps that install the software do so silently and with no user notification whatsoever. Thus some user data (though nothing like what the wild claims allege) can be sent without the user's consent.

I'm personally inclined to see this as a consequence of less-than-stellar competence rather than active evil intent on the part of Aureate. But even if their hearts are pure, the end result is that there's a fair chance you have software on your system you don't know about, and that it may be communicating some information about you or your system to others without your knowledge or consent. That's not OK.

Reader "Darren" found a freeware app (from a known hacker!) that purports to remove Aureate components:

Further info on the Aureate Spy software (the software that installs .dll files on your computer which connect to Aureate when you go online and send worryingly comprehensive information about you): Help has come from an unlikely source - Cokebottle (a renowned software 'cracker') has developed a little utility to detect and remove Aureate Spy components. The file can be downloaded from: http://www.download.com@3253986333/dload/antispy.zip

The utility is virus & trojan free, but you should always scan ANY file that you download from the internet - don't take anybody's word for it...

Thanks, Darren--- though I'd wonder about using a known hackers apps in any case. <g>

A more familiar name--- Steve Gibson, of www.grc.com fame--- also has weighed in on the matter at http://grc.com/aureate.htm, and has promised a freeware fix of his own.

My take on all this is that the software is indeed poorly done and badly used, and I'll use Steve's cleanup app when it becomes available. Meanwhile, I've manually deleted Advert.dll from my system (this rips the heart out of the Aureate system) and erased any references to Aureate in my Registry (using Regedit.Exe). Finally, with ZoneAlarm running, I can detect and block attempts by Aureate or *any* "phone home" app.

In short: While there's something not right about the Aureate software and the way it's been used, it's also fairly easy to shut it down. And that's exactly what I recommend you do.

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