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Even tech reporters need tech support. The most convenient kind takes place over the Internet. You give permission to a support person to fix your computer from afar. Then watch them work and learn something.

Trend Micro is offering a free day of tech support on June 15, to the first 1000 people who register at freedayofsupport.com. They can use their free day any time before September 15. Services included  are:

• Find out why your computer is running slowly.
• Are you vulnerable to security threats?
• Check Internet security, email security, and firewall settings.
• Fine-tune your anti-virus and anti-spyware software settings (for Trend Micro Internet Security users only).

To get an email reminder so you don’t forget to sign up on June 15, you can sign up now at freedayofsupport.com.

“ScareWare” is a new term for an old problem: screen messages from bad guys trying to get you to buy something you shouldn’t.

These are often messages that pop-up on your computer screen telling you you’re in trouble and you should buy some program that will fix everything. A common one tells you to buy a “registry cleaner.” It’s hard to see who really needs this. Your computer’s registry doesn’t get “dirty,” takes up very little space, and attempts to clean it can cause more harm than good. “Scareware,” according to McAfee Labs, has increased more than 600% in the last two years.

That’s not the only problem computer users face. What should you do when your email inbox is full of spam, and your computer fills up with viruses and spyware? There are programs like Kaspersky Internet Security, $25 from download.com, that handle all those problems well. We use Avast for anti-virus, Gmail to filter out spam and “Anti-Malware” to get rid of spyware.

Avast from Avast.com and “Anti-Malware” from malwarebytes.org both come in a free and paid version. With “Anti-Malware,” the only difference between the two is that the free version helps you after you have a problem and the paid version prevents problems from happening in the first place.

With this deal, McAfee gets access to 350 million potential new customers. But what do you get?  Bob is very leery of this deal because they ask you for your credit card number before giving you the “free” product.  Almost every time a company asks for your credit card number before they give you a “free” product or service, you find yourself on an automatic billing program when that free deal expires. Surprise!  You probably forgot all about it six months later, but they didn’t.

McAfeee doesn’t charge you during the first six months, but when that’s over, you’re charged $35 for a year’s subscription. That’s a 30 percent discount over the regular price.  But it still may not be a good deal.

If you take the deal, you’ll be asked to uninstall any anti-virus product you’re currently using. We’re currently using Avast anti-virus. Unlike McAfee and most other products, it never bugs you with difficult questions about what to keep and what to throw out. If it’s malware, a category that includes viruses, trojans and the like, it’s eliminated, period. You can get the basic version of Avast for  free at  Avast.com.

Yesterday, Joy’s friend Nancy, who uses McAfee, had several forms of malware on her computer. There was a huge “block or allow” message on the screen warning her of threats. But every time Nancy clicked  ”block,” the message stayed there. It turned out she had to exit completely out of the Web and then click “block,” to make the message go away. And it wasn’t at all clear what site was being blocked.

If you want to try out McAfee for yourself, go to facebook.com/mcafee and click “become a fan” or to facebook.com/security and click “protect your pc.”  Watch out for future billing.

These programs initiated 43 million attempts to prompt user installation between July 2008 and June 2009, Symantec reported.  The pitch warned users to click on some box on the screen to protect themselves from attacks that might happen any second.  Of course those who did click were immediately infected with a large group of dangerous programs collectively referred to as malware.

The most commonly reported rogue applications found during the study were “SpywareGuard 2008,” “AntiVirus 2008,” “AntiVirus 2009,” “Spyware Secure” and “XP AntiVirus.”

We have repeatedly written that we use “AVG Antivirus” and “Avira AntiVirus Personal” on our own computers. Both of these have been tested many times and both are free at download.com. The Avira program has been downloaded more than 60 million times, AVG AntiVirus more than 225 million times.

A study by the United States Secret Service, which apparently took some time off from protecting the President, found that 32% of all electronic crimes are committed by insiders.  

This goes along with regular crime, which Bob did some articles on years ago and found that criminals committing serious crimes, especially murder, nearly always knew their victims. Looking at the kind of crimes the Secret Service was talking about, it also makes sense that the perpetrators would be familiar with an organization’s computer system and how to circumvent its protection. They could be current employees or recently dismissed employees.  

This fits with the computer viruses that shut down large systems, sometimes very large systems. The virus is almost always acquired by an employee doing something foolish or simply unthinking, such as clicking on a button that says sometime seemingly harmless like “click here to verify your account.” If you don’t know the source of the information, don’t click. Which leads us right into our next topic: dangerous searches. 

Dangerous Search Terms 

A recent report by McAfee, one of the leading makers of anti-virus software, found that the most dangerous search term to use on the web is “screensavers.”  

Now who would have thought that an innocuous term like screensavers would bring up bad things, like viruses, key loggers and plain old-fashioned scams? But it makes all kinds of sense. Because first of all, screensavers, or “screen savers,” no matter how you spell it, are nearly always free. And everybody loves free stuff, so when you get to the web site and it says “click here for your free screen saver,” well, you have to click or you’re not going to get your freebie.  

The instant you click, it triggers a download of some something, and you have no idea what that something is. It could be a key logger, which will record every keystroke you make from that second forward, including the passwords you are going to type in at some time in the not too distant future, or it could be software that allows your system to be controlled from another location. Not good. 

There’s no point in being completely paranoid about this, though it’s true that even paranoids can have enemies, but a little caution is advisable. McAfee’s research found that nearly 60 percent of the web sites that came up for the search term “screensavers,” were in fact sites set up to transmit bad software, often referred to collectively as “malware,” straight into your computer. The second and third worst results came from searches for “lyrics,” which connected to potentially bad sites 26 percent of the time, and “free,” which found dangerous sites 21 percent of the time. Other dangerous search terms were “iPhone” and “games.” 

Now there’s no need to go nuts and hide in the digital closet; most sites are trustworthy. Most people also know which sites they trust.  After all, your local newspaper or news magazine is not out to cheat you. You can also use protective software. We both use a free program from AVG that posts a warning on screen if the site you are about to go to looks risky. You can get that at grisoft.com. They also sell more comprehensive protection programs. 

If you’re searching for free programs to download – which we often do, it’s best to go to sites like download.com or tucows.com, which test programs before posting them. Sites for leading computer magazines also test programs before listing them for download.

Be careful when clicking on anything in your email that has “swine flu” in the subject line. According to Symantec, the top lines include “Swine Flu USA,” “Salma Hayek Caught Swine Flu!” and “Swine Flu Statistics.” These are all phony messages aimed at getting you to sign up for something or download something you should not.

You can avoid falling into one of these traps by installing a free link-scanner from AVG (Bob’s favorite anti-virus software). This warns you if you are about to go to a dangerous web link. By the way, if you already have AVG Anti-Virus, which is also free, you already have the link scanner. But since Joy uses the free Avira anti-virus program, she added the AVG link scanner to her arsenal.

You can get the link scanner at slamtheonlinescam.com. This website also tells you about PayPal scams, parking ticket scams and others. The parking ticket scam is particularly clever. The scammer leaves an official looking parking ticket on your car windshield. It says you have committed a violation and must pay a fine. It also provides a web site address you can go to for more information. That’s the web site that’s going to get you. Don’t go there.

Grisoft, makers of the free AVG anti-virus software, says eighty million people have downloaded AVG Anti-Virus to date. We are two of them.

Did you know that identity theft is a growth industry? It was up 22 percent last year, and still climbing the charts. We thought we already were already well-informed about all this stuff but we learned a few new tricks from a book written by a couple of cyber cops: “Cyber Crime Fighters, Tales from the Trenches;” by Donovan and Bernier. One of the authors is a detective, the other a systems manager in a police department.

Many of you already know that most cell phones come with a built-in global positioning chip. This is meant to help in emergencies. If you are ever lost of hurt, you can be located by the police and other government agencies by tracking your cell phone. At least, they can locate the phone. So can anyone else as it turns out.

This tracking business all started because many companies wanted to locate their vehicles or use global positioning to plan the most efficient routes for sales calls and deliveries. But naturally enough, it has expanded to include just about everyone. “Google Latitude” is a program that can locate you and transmit that information to your friends, complete with map and your picture. This doesn’t need GPS satellites but works by triangulating your position through cell phone towers. This will work even if you’re inside a large building. It can use GPS as well, and the two technologies combined can pinpoint your location quite accurately. If both are working, a blue dot will appear next to your location. Another program of this type is called “Blip,” from BlackLine GPS; a web search can turn up others.

You have to give permission for this kind of tracking, of course, and there is a useful purpose to it. There are many reasons for wanting to know where someone is: it could be to track a young child or sick relative, for example, or someone who has mental lapses and may wander off; it could be a friend or colleague who wants to be tracked for safety reasons.

But if someone can get hold of your cell phone for just a few minutes, that person can register the phone to be tracked and list their own phone or a smartphone (like a Blackberry) to receive the information. It could be a roommate, a co-worker, a spouse (or ex-spouse) – anyone who can get to that phone while you are somewhere else for a few minutes, perhaps in the shower or out to lunch. They need those minutes because a message will come back to the phone saying that someone has requested tracking and asks if you agree. The tracker needs to still have control of the phone to send back a message saying they do agree. After that it’s open city.

Snoop Stick Around

“SnoopStick” is an interesting gizmo. It is a USB flash drive that installs key logging software on any Windows computer it is plugged into. Key logging software records all the keystrokes made on that computer and sends you the information. It also lets you look at whatever screen the user is viewing at the moment.

You can use the $60 Snoop Stick on up to three target computers. After you plug it into those and plug it in back into your home computer, you can watch all the action on the target computers, including passwords. You can also see the screens they’re watching. You can save an instant snapshot of those screens for later evidence. If they are chatting back and forth with other users, the SnoopStick will record the conversation.

SnoopStick is marketed as a parental control device. It operates in stealth mode and the targeted computers would not normally know their actions are being tracked. As a final fillip, you, the spy, can turn off their Internet connection. And that, as the actress said to the bishop, is that.

Fraud For Sale

There are many other kinds of cyber crime. Who’s more likely to fall for fraud at an online auction site like eBay? Do you think it’s men or women?

It turns out that men waste much more money on bogus auctions than women do. But a study done in the U.K found that 45 percent of women gave up their passwords and other personal information just for an offer of a free chocolate bar. Only 10 percent of men did so.

Fake Caller ID

– Don’t rely on caller ID too heavily. It’s possible for the caller to send a fake ID.

A lot of kids think this is fun and funny. They call a friend and the incoming call is listed as coming from the FBI or their mom. You can go to SpoofCard.com and buy a card that lets you make calls that not only lists the incoming call as coming from anyone and anywhere you want, it also lets you disguise your voice. Do you think that call is coming from someone at your bank? Don’t bet money on it. So far, this works in the U.S. only; worldwide action is no doubt coming up soon.

That’s great, but most important of all, it knocks out “key loggers,” which can be installed without your knowledge when you visit a malicious website. For those unfamiliar with this kind of snooping software, what key loggers do is record all your keystrokes. Keyloggers can then collect what you have typed, including your passwords, email messages and any banking or credit card transactions you may have made. In a test run against key logger programs, ForceField blocked ten out of ten.

There are three basic controls in ZoneAlarm’s ForceField:

1. You can click “Protection Activity” to see how many attacks were foiled.

2. Click “Site Status” to find out if the website you’re on is considered dangerous.

3. Click “Private Browser” to destroy all traces of your surfing history. We especially liked the fact that traveling from inside a bubble didn’t noticeably slow down our web surfing.

ForceField sells for $50 and comes with an extra program called Password Manager. This is particularly handy when you are surfing the web under the protection of “Private Browser.” Otherwise you would have to re-enter your passwords every time you go to a website that requires them.

Zone Alarm Force Field reminds us of the “Cone of Silence” in the old “Get Smart” comedies. The program is for PCs only and does not interfere with your other anti-virus or protection programs. There is a free trial available at ZoneAlarm.com.

It’s a black and silver gizmo about half the size of a package of chewing gum and it plugs into any USB port on a PC. What it does is intercept anything that attempts to load itself into your PC’s memory or hard drive and it does this on the fly, as they say. One user commented that the Yoggie Gatekeeper saved him from the “Norton slow death,” a reference to Symantec’s best-selling “Norton Internet Security” program.  (Bob refuses to load anything from Symantec.)

The little Gatekeeper is pitched by the manufacturer as a computer in its own right, because it has a central processor using the Linux operating system. That’s overkill from the marketing department, because, sure enough, it does have a CPU running Linux, but that doesn’t make it a computer as most people would think of one.

What it does have that matters to us, the users, is 12 on-board security programs, including anti-spyware,  anti-spam, anti-phishing and a parental control program. The idea is to have all these programs on an outside device, so it doesn’t slow your computer. Eleven of the programs only analyze Internet traffic, however, so if you plug in an external drive you need to run the included Kapersky Anti-Virus software.

The Gatekeeper Pico also has a hardware firewall that’s more effective than the Windows software version. Various kinds of attacks, such as “IP spoofing” or “denial of service” can bypass the Windows firewall.

You can call the Gatekeeper’s controls up on your screen and click to go to the Yoggie web site. There you can get a reading of what’s been going on with your own machine. Three gauges show you how many attacks and what kind that the device had to fend off in the last 15 minutes.

When we first installed the device it showed we were in the red zone, with lots of attacks. As we write this column we are now in the “green zone,” with only 1,836 firewall attacks in the last 15 minutes. (You think this is a lot? We talked to someone who runs a financial services web site and he said he gets about 30,000 attacks every 5 minutes.) We also had two virus attacks but they were fended off with a flick of  the wrist.

Now for the downside:  If you keep the Yoggie Gatekeeper plugged into a USB port and you never turn off your computer, which is common with many users, the gizmo will get almost too hot to touch after just a few days. That’s because it has a CPU chip, and they give off heat; the case has no air flow for cooling.

Yoggie has three price levels for their protective devices. The Gatekeeper Pico, which is what we used, lists for $149; though we found it for $95 at Amazon. The Yoggie Firestick, which just provides a firewall, was $87 at Amazon. A business version, the Gatekeeper SOHO, protecting several computers at once, lists for $249. Lots more info at Yoggie.com.

NEXT: We also tried Trend Micro’s new “Internet Security 2008” software. The less said about this, the better, but we’ll spare a few words anyway.

The program sells for $50 and you have to renew it every year for another $50.We loaded it into three computers and it brought all of them to their figurative knees. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be loaded onto the machine or into memory without an exhaustive examination of its entrails. This included a poker game we like to play once in a while, instead of solitaire. Calling it up on the screen demanded an immediate virus check from Trend Micro. Calling it up again triggered another exhaustive virus check, even though it has just been checked less a minute ago and nothing had changed.

This sort of thing can carry on much longer than we can. We tried it on a Windows Vista computer, which slowed it so much that after half an hour we just gave up and shut down. We recommend this product  for people who really don’t like using their computer.