Cheers Doc,
The windows updates and that baloney I can do without, but the retail financial market information must be kept updated and my back office is held by a remote server, so they need access constantly. The other worry is the key and security certificate I have installed to allow me to access individual credit files. Losing those would be a disaster of Pompeii proportions.
Think I'll run it and only clean out the things I know are not linked to the above applications.
Alan

hewittalan6

If you hold really vital information on your computer then you should not have to worry. If it goes wrong, you simply restore it from the backup.

Unless ...........

hewittalan6

If your information is so vitally important, I trust you also have a good backup system in place?

Perhaps something like a removable external hard drive (A) backed up with another similar one of the same sort (B) ? And not just the drives but also a routine to follow, with a log to keep, complete with date and time? All designed so as to make you do your backup routine regularly and with discipline.

Such touching concern!!!!!!! LOL
Seriously, all data on these systems backs up automatically to a remote server several times a day. There is a second system to ensure that my, and my business partners machine exchange data and update each other automatically, so that if one goes down, the other has the record, even if the auto backup has failed and finally, the applications we use are outsourced to bespoke software designers, who retain a copy of the application and all updates / patches.
The real concern was the key / certificate for the credit referencing as this is, apparantly, a one off specific to each machine / user. It cannot be copied or backed up and takes several days and a long application process to replace if damaged or if required for a new PC.
I am sure you are all glad to read of the safeguards to your personal credit details!!
Alan

BTW,
Done the CC, cleaned 750MB of crap, not lost a thing that was important to me and the machine now appears much quicker.
Top marks to the programme and to Doc for the tip off.
Thanks
Alan

Alan

750MB of crap, eh? It's so nice to be appreciated, and especially in connection with removing crap.....

:-)

You should be telling us about backup - not the other way round. ;-)

Oh, and when you say, "....your credit details....", well, whose credit details do you actually mean?

Everyone in the UK............potentially.
Don't worry. Your secrets are safe with me......
Alan

Presumably as a result of access to Experian or similar for credit reference/scoring purposes. It is quite interesting what they have on people. I have had quite a bit of experience of that application.

Bullseye.
Thats why i am so ultra cautious about messing with my machine.
The info is incredible. Particularly some of the newer components such as Hunter and the GAIN network.
The media stuff about identity theft is largely scare mongering. It exists, but these applications are so refined nowadays that the vast majority of attempts are rooted out straight away, but you can never be too careful.
alan

I had a guy who worked for me. His father in law worked for Fords at Dagenham and because he was a relative he was able to buy a car at a discount from Fords. He applied for hire purchase and was turned down due to credit scoring. This was strange as he was squeaky clean and I was paying him a small fortune. He even owned his house outright. In those days Experian (CCN then) would not discuss it. I had him checked through a client who we were doing IT work for on the credit scoring/lending area. It turned out that the previous owner of his house had the same surname and had an appaling credit history. The system associated the two and he had a dire credit score as a result. He went back to CCN and asked if the problem might be the previous owner and said he could prove that he was unrelated. Even then they would not correct the problem. He got the credit in the end because my company stood as guarantor for the loan.

If you know how, it is easily possible to circumvent credit scoring even now. But that's another story and not for public consumption.

Agreed. Circumventing is a doddle, and not for public airing. The difficult bit (since 2001 anyway) is passing off as another. That is getting harder by the day.

It is fairly easy to pass off as another for a short time (long enough to acquire plenty of money). Someone I know had it done to them and the method was so simple it is quite alarming. Just be careful during the period that you are moving house is all I can say.

My brother in law had that as he moved house, and you are right, it is a very dangerous time for identity theft, but recently there have been some checks and balances introduced by many financial institutions to highlight abnormal or irregular applications that are quite sophisticated and use much deeper knowledge than experian / equifax / ccn or Dunn & Bradstreet use.
Still for anyone who has a very in depth knowledge they can do it, but it is a much longer process now and the chances of being caught massively increase with how long the process takes to get you to a point where the rewards are worthwhile.
Nuff said.
The less joe public knows about how these frauds are committed, the easier they are to catch and we have no idea who may be reading this thread!!
Alan

Have used CCleaner for over 3 years, with no problems - just use the basic default settings. Use it at the end of every session. It should remove the need for adaware/spybot.

Don't use norton or other bloated stuff -use something like avg.

Get rid of all sorts of crap that runs in the background.
http://qwertymaniac.wordpress.com/2006/03/22/disabling-useless-services-and-sppeding-up-your-computer/

http://www.dead-eye.net/WinXP%20Services.htm



As to the fraud debate. The media often scaremongers but online security of businesses is poor. There are hundreds of online businesses/companies whose databases are insecure. And as to the law -as usual this country lags behind the USA. Their law makes it the responsibility of companies to automatically protect us as the default and if it doesn't they have to pay. That is not the case here yet. Many security experts will not bank online, buy anything online and use cash at petrol stations!

Has anyone any experience of using Limewire for free mp3 downloads?

skinny
I don't known whether you saw a story about a week ago concerning a user of a peer to peer file sharing system. He was able to retrieve many other types of files apart from mp3. In particular he accessed doc type files which contained personal details of other users. He had the details of many bank accounts, passwords and personal information. He contacted one of the people who was easily identified and was thanked for the information. The contact was too late as the person had been robbed using the information just a couple of days earlier.

Hmmm no I didn't Haystack - perhaps I'll do a bit of research - many thanks.

The problems occur due to the way people set up the sharing of parts of their filesystem (or all of it). It is the result of people with too little technical knowledge using powerful applications that have unexpected consequences.

The story was tramsmitted on SKY news in full.

Here is one shorter reference to the story

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1254004,00.html

Unsafe: Music File Sharing
Updated: 17:18, Friday March 02, 2007
Sky News has learned that people who share files on the internet could end up sharing far more than they intended.

The news room has been contacted by a concerned viewer who had stumbled across some highly confidential documents while using a file sharing program.

Sky's Paul Harrison said Andy Coyle from London was innocently searching for music using such software when he came across other people's sensitive documents.

They included passport details of film stars and other celebrities, contact details and other personal data.

Credit card information and bank statements for a senior foreign dignatory had also been accessed including PINs and passwords.

Harrison said the implications was potentially huge.

"People close their doors at night and think they are safe but because their computer can be accessed by file-sharing, their documents are not secure," he said.

Mr Coyle warned other web users: "They are losing their IDs. If I know about this then others are doing it for other purposes."

If you want to be safer using file sharing sites, you could always find a Live Linux system that has a peer to peer client, boot your PC (or better still an old PC with no hard disk) from the CD and save your downloaded files to a USB drive.

I know it's a complicated way of doing it, but it would totally isolate your PC from any threat and the Linux systems are free.

There is some very dangerous software around, so be careful. I have seen suggestions that a number of peer-to-peer systems originating in Russia are available specifically to get access to information on personal PCs. They work on the basis that many people will be careless in setting up security and sharing on their PCs.