PC Guard Dog provides background Internet protection

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): A reader of The Jakarta Post once asked me what cookies were and whether they were harmful or not. Well, of course, what she had in mind were not the same cookies Nissin or Khong Guan bake in their biscuit factories. What she was referring to were the small text files that are stored automatically on our hard disk -- without our knowledge -- as we browse a particular Web site.

Most of these cookies are harmless. They usually contain our log-in name and our password, so that we will not have to retype them over and over again the next time we visit the same site. If you do a lot of on-line shopping, you may leave your shopping cart before you go to the cashier to pay for them and hop into another Web site. The cookies left on your hard disk help memorize the list of articles you have put in your cart when you return to fetch it later.

If you are using Internet Explorer 3.x or newer and want to see how the cookies enter your PC in reality, go to the View menu item, and then click on Options. In the dialog box that appears, click on Advanced. Then check under Warnings to see whether the options "Warn before sending over an open connection" and "Warn before accepting cookies" are both activated.

The next time you browse the Internet, you will be notified that a cookie is being delivered to your door. You will have the option of accepting it or rejecting it. You will be also asked whether you really want to send out a piece of data that might expose you to prying eyes.

I think these options should be left deactivated most of the time because since the program stops to ask us these questions we will end up spending more money on-line. The longer we are hooked up to the Internet, the more we have to give up our hard-earned money -- both to our ISP and our dearest telecom operator.

But this is not to say that these cookies are all innocent. Some of them can be used by advertisers to track our Internet activities and our personal interests, and generally we do not want this breach of privacy. So, one protection we could add to our PCs is a tool that lets us manage these cookies. But, first, let's talk about the other threats on the Internet and the security blanket called "personal firewall".

Firewall

Host computers containing sensitive data are frequently attacked by hackers with small programs designed to 'bomb' the system. To protect themselves against these deleterious intruders, host computers are equipped with an expensive set of software and hardware called "firewall".

Lately, the firewall concept has been brought down to the personal computer. In a nutshell, a personal firewall consists of software utilities that ensure privacy, security and safety. The question is now, against what else besides cookies?

In addition to the generally benign cookies, there are other intruders that we get our hard disks exposed to as we hop on the Internet.

First, there are computer viruses everywhere, including on the Internet. When you download a free utility program from a Web site, for example, there is a big chance it is infected by viruses. The moment you install this program on your machine it can wreak havoc with your system. So one thing a personal firewall should do is to scan every downloaded file for viruses.

The next hazards come from what is called an ActiveX Control or a Java Applet. Do not worry about what they mean; suffice to say they are necessary to make our Internet experience -- as they put it -- more interesting. Automatically copied onto our computer, the ActiveX Control and Java Applet on our hard disk will help make the Web screen more lively. Animated objects, for instance, will continue playing even after we have disconnected the line.

Like the cookies, most ActiveX controls and Java applets pose no serious threat. But some have been programmed to destroy. They may go into our systems and wipe out important data. They, in short, may cause us a lot of suffering. Thus, the next important task a personal firewall should do is watch out for these desperadoes.

Finally, from time to time we may also want our E-mail to be encrypted so that no one else can read it. A personal firewall may be equipped with a tool to ensure that only authorized people can read our messages.

So, to sum up, a good personal firewall protects us against malignant ActiveX Controls or Java Applets, checks for viruses as we download files from the Internet -- or any other network for that matter, lets us manage cookies and enables us to scramble our E-mail messages.

Guard dog

There are at least four programs that will provide a decent level of protection with a personal firewall. They are: Desktop Security Suite from McAfee Associates (www.mcafee.com), eSafe Protect from eSafe Technologies (www.esafe.com), SurfinShield Xtra from Finjan Software (www.finjan.com), and PC Guard Dog from CyberMedia (www.cybermedia.com).

Just to get a clearer idea, I downloaded a copy of the Preview Release of PC Guard Dog, a personal firewall from CyberMedia.

This software maker is known to be among the first to provide tools for Internet security and it is not yet available in shipping.

Installation of PC Guard Dog was straightforward. I clicked on the Install/Remove program icon in my Control Panel, and I browsed until I found the file GDSETUP(1).EXE that I had just downloaded. Once installed, I manually rebooted my PC, and when Windows 95 was reloading PC Guard Dog asked me whether I would like to have it protect my PC. I clicked on Yes, and then I was asked: "Do you want PC Guard Dog to protect your privacy while you are on the Internet?" Sure, I clicked on Yes, and then came the next question: "Do you want PC Guard Dog to erase evidence of your Internet activities after you quit browsing." This must be the cookies stuff, so I clicked on Yes. The next question was "Do you want PC Guard Dog to monitor your system security while you are on the Internet?" Nobody would say no to such a question. The last question was, "Do you want PC Guard Dog to protect your E- mail files." I clicked on Yes again.

Although this program gave me some problems afterwards (I ended up having to reboot the PC each time I quit other programs including Photoshop and Winfax Pro), PC Guard Dog provides a good example of how we should protect our system as we browse the Internet.

The glitches I had in this program were nothing to worry about, because it was just a preview version. The antivirus module was still under development, and CyberMedia promises to included it in the shipping version.

One interesting thing happened when I clicked on the Clean up button. I was shocked to see the how many cookies had accumulated in the cookies' folder. I decided to erase all of them in one swoop with the help of PC Guard Dog, and suddenly I had about 30 MB more space on my hard disk.

PC Guard Dog provides background Internet protection. Each time a Web site sends a cookie to our PC, for example, this program checks it out and compares the name of the sender against the list of welcomed cookies. If it cannot find the name of that particular Web site on our list of acceptable sources of cookies, it will notify us and ask for approval. Once we accept the cookie, the program will add the name of the sending Web site to its list. The next time a cookie arrives from this particular site, PC Guard Dog will treat it with proper hospitality.

For an all-out personal firewall, PC Guard Dog will be a good choice. We look forward to the shipping version for a more thorough review.