leaving mic plugged into computer

If you're the type of person that installs spyware, viruses, or other junk on a regular basis then you need to be aware that someone could be listening in -- But chances are none of us here (myself included) have anything interesting enough to be worth spying on.

You'd think, but the way people seem to install spyware these days, I just assume people have spyware installed.

Why would there be..?

Ivor

Shouldn't you be more concerned with checking that you *haven't* got any spyware..??!!

Ivor

You won't find any here :-)

Ivor

I was having some hard drive type noise coming out of my speaker that seemed to happen after I used my headset, making me wonder if the headset had anything to do with it. That's why I asked. It may be the cheap built-in sound card.

You and me both. I've run without virus scanners for several years now, although I do occasionally scan my system with a couple AV solutions plus a couple spyware scanners, and aside from cookies (since when are cookies spyware?) I haven't had a legitimate hit in years.

Interestingly enough an app a friend and I developed back in the late

90s is now on NAV's virus list. It was just a simple (one click) install a FTP server and some remote control software, plus a home grown precursor-to-dynamic-DNS client to make remote troubleshooting easier.

[snip]

Cookies can report back what you've been doing, where you've been on the web etc. so I don't like them for that reason. Not spyware in the strict sense of the word but I still delete them on a daily basis. It keeps getting me popups asking if I want to accept cookies every time I go on eBay or wherever, but at least I know what's going on.

I have trouble occasionally with an old DOS application I sometimes use. It's a remote control program that lets you take over the screen and keyboard of another computer under the IPX protocol, which I use to monitor a standalone DOS PC that's on my system. Norton Antivirus flags it as a trojan, which of course it is, but it was designed to be..! I keep adding it to the known applications list but it keeps deleting itself somehow ;-)

Ivor