Cade Metz

In May, the Federal Trade Commission held a forum in Washington, D.C., for experts, including PC Magazine technical director Matthew D. Sarrel, to discuss the escalating spam problem. Coinciding with the forum, antispam firm SurfControl released data from a survey it commissioned through research firm Public Opinion Strategies. What exactly constitutes spam? Of 1,600 respondents, […]

Our feature on the world of spyware didnt scare you? This will. PCs the world over are being hit by a new breed of software known as a dialer. These programs are far more malicious than spyware, which merely keeps a record of your online behavior. Dialers use your modem to surreptitiously dial long distance […]

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission held a three-day forum in Washington DC, bringing together experts, including PC Magazines Technical Director Matthew D. Sarrel, to discuss the issue of Internet spam. The trouble was that no one could agree on how to define spam. Some said it is any unsolicited bulk e-mail. Others said its […]

Welcome to the era of the antispam tool. With the average e-mail user receiving 2,200 unsolicited and unwanted messages a year, according to Jupiter Research, the market for software designed to block the flood of junk is getting bigger by the month. The latest entry is Ella, a $29.95 download that not only filters spam […]

Why should you have a home network? How should you plan it? PC Magazine looks at these questions from several angles, including security in their Home Networking 101.

The world is going wireless. According to a new report from In-Stat/MDR, a Scottsdale, Arizona research firm, 6.8 million 802.11b wireless devices were sold for home use in 2002, a 160 percent increase over the previous year. Business shipments, the firm says, rose to 11.6 million units, a 65 percent increase. “Volumes are much higher […]

Every year, Chris Hoofnagle organizes the US Big Brother Awards under the auspices of a public interest group called Privacy International. “These are awards we give out to government institutions and businesses whove done the most to invade our privacy,” says Hoofnagle, who also serves as deputy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), […]

Tired of e-mail promises to make you thinner, richer, taller, smarter, larger, safer, firmer, debt-free, and highly entertained? Nothing will stop all these unwanted messages, but here are 16 products that can help ease the bloat. The Lifecycle of Spam How They Get Your E-Mail AddressA spammer has several sneaky ways of getting your e-mail […]

As of this week, DVD X Copy, a 321 Studios application recently reviewed by PC Magazine, is readily available from the 321 Web site and many popular retailers, including CompUSA and Frys. But if seven of the leading movie studios have their way, this wont last long. On April 25, in US District Court for […]

As expected, at the CeBIT 2002 technology trade show in Hannover, Germany, Intel introduced Xeon MP, the server microprocessor previously known as Foster. In Intels Xeon line of workstation and server chips, this is the third to use the companys NetBurst architecture, (which debuted in early 2001 with the Pentium 4 desktop CPU). But this […]