-Caveat Lector-
http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/stories/reviews/0,5672,391688,00.html
Bombshell
Paul Somerson, PC Computing
March 3, 1999
A shocking revelation in a little-known Minnesota legal case is about to throw
the entire PC industry into turmoil. And unless privacy advocates are successful
in a court challenge, everyday users may be in serious danger of being sued or
fired. The trouble started when Lydia Profaslo, a 24-year-old sales associate at
Polar Foil, a manufacturer of thermal insulating material, posted a photograph
on her firm's Web site taken at a company picnic. In the photo, Profaslo is
wearing shorts and a bathing suit top.
A coworker of hers, Eve Wolensky, testified that she was walking past the office
of a sales manager, Roger Jeffries, and happened to notice Jeffries looking at
the photo and making an inappropriate remark. Wolensky informed Profaslo, who
left the office in tears, and later brought a sexual harassment suit against
Jeffries and Polar.
In the ensuing trial, her attorneys asked Polar executives a routine question
about the existence of any recordings that could shed light on the case. To
their surprise, company officials reluctantly revealed a secret that may shake
the PC industry to its roots.
It turns out that virtually every computer system purchased after March 1996
contains a microphone, and that the IT departments at Polar and other companies
had routinely been using special sound-activated software to record and collect
conversations.
Microphones, which cost manufacturers less than a quarter, had been mandated in
the 1996 IEEE RFC 0401 PC/Telephony spec, but few users have taken advantage of
them. However, Polar's attorneys admitted that most IT departments, and even
major Internet providers, have been running special SCP (Speech Collection Port)
software that uses the microphones to bug conversations as a "protective
measure."
The software can harvest all speech within a five-foot radius of an average PC,
compress and store it, and send it over LANs or Internet connections to a
central collection server.
Witnesses who have listened to the recording say Jeffries was allegedly heard to
whistle and say to himself "Nice bazongas." Jeffries, who was subsequently
fired, directed all inquiries to his lawyer.
Profaslo's legal team has argued the episode has caused her "serious depression,
anorexia, and sleeplessness." She has filed for disability, and is suing Polar
for $30 million in damages.
So how do you know if you're at risk for something you might have said
innocently over the past three years? Here's the sure-fire trick: If you've ever
noticed that your hard disk "in-use" indicator light periodically goes on for a
few seconds even when you're not typing, or saving files, it is almost certain
that SCP software has been surreptitiously collecting and sending your
conversations either over your network or via the Internet.
It's possible to safeguard yourself against such big-brother corporate snooping
by disabling the microphones, according to Jim Sumner, a top electrical engineer
at Compaq. Some microphones are easy to spot--they usually sit behind nail-sized
recessed grilles. Other more sensitive ones are hidden on motherboards.
Privacy advocates are predictably upset at this, and have brought suit to end
the practice. Developers at one such organization, the Computer Freedom
Foundation, have created a pair of useful freeware programs. The first detects
whether snooping has occurred, and deactivates the microphone. (It also lets you
play back any temporary speech files still hidden on your hard disk.) The other
replaces any untransmitted conversations with a .WAV file of actor E.G. Marshall
reading the text of the First Amendment.
Have you said anything while at your PC that could haunt you? For instructions
on disabling your microphones, copies of the two freeware programs, and a patch
that adds a blinking light to your taskbar whenever your microphone is active,
go to www.pccomputing.com/snoopfix. Hurry.
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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