I heard from a friend that Prodigy was scanning user's hard drives. Basically, when you logged on Prodigy made a complete directory of your hard drive and uploaded it. Prodigy was using this to find out what applications you used so they could direct the appropriate advertising towards you. Apparently, they're suffering several lawsuits now because of it.
My friend heard this on the trailing end of a radio talk show. If it was really happening, it sounds horrible. Could Secure Drive be set up to stop this kind of attack?
Can anyone tell me if this is more than a rumour? If it is more than a rumour, would you be able to point me towards some information about this?
Just a rumor, disposed of several years ago. A hot topic of debate around 1990. This rumor arose because Prodigy set aside a block of user disk space for its own files. Sometimes this block had random stuff in it (recall that "erasing" a file doesn't actually overwrite the disk, it just removes pointers to the stuff being erased and allows other stuff to later be overwritten over it). Prodigy used part (a small part, given 1200- and 2400-baud modems in use then) of this block to send back to the main computers, so in principle it could see miscellaneous scraps of erased data. But this was accidental, was a tiny fraction of the disk, was not used or even looked at by Prodigy, and would have absolutely no value in determining applications used. (Think about what a samll random chunk of "erased" disk space would really mean in terms of telling outsiders what applications you use!) Ironically, an old college buddy of mine is now in charge of e-mail for Prodigy, in White Plains, New York. He visited me last summer and I showed him a _real_ computer service (Netcom) and we had a few good chortles about this Prodigy Conspiracy. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power:2**859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.