Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Amy O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently installed Roxio Easy CD Creator (ECD) 5 Platinum on my PC. Ever since then, my CD Autorun feature would not work. I later decided to uninstall ECD5 in order to restore the Autorun feature, ... but my CD ROM still refuses to Autorun a disc whenever I put it in the drive. Do you have any suggestions to get my Autorun to work? " My response: Autorun won't work unless a feature called Auto Insert Notification and/or AutoPlay is turned on. Auto Insert Notification works by periodically polling a CD ROM drive for the purpose of ... (view more)

Continuing our conversation on Steganography from Tuesday's edition of the Gazette, Infopackets Reader Mike D. exclaims how he downloaded a .WAV sound file that also contained a Trojan: " Hi Dennis, As part of a talk I gave some time ago on IPSec ... [the IP Security Protocol Working Group], I wandered into the area of Steganography. The topic was of particular relevance to me because I had only just discovered (thanks to PestPatrol ) that a Star Trek sound file that I downloaded from the Internet contained a Trojan!" Side note: Digital Steganography is the ability to hide a file inside ... (view more)

Die-hard Infopackets Reader Reverand William A. writes: " Dennis, thanks for such a great news / info publication. I do have a question. I use Outlook Express and would like to know if there is a way to send a message to multiple recipients without ... showing all the names in the TO: field once the message has been delivered. There are times we'd like to send a quick note to many people, but don't want each email address published. Any ideas? Thanks for the help. " My response: What you are referring to is called a Blind Carbon Copy, or BCC. The BCC field allows you to send a message ... (view more)

" Dear Dennis, I recently read your article regarding 'PC won't go into hibernation mode with Digital Camera?', dated November 19, 2003. I have somewhat of a related problem. When I click Start -> Standby, my monitor shuts off and the PC appears ... to go into a low power state, but then quickly comes back to life a second later. Any idea why my computer won't remain in Standby mode? " My Response: There could be a number of reasons why the computer won't remain in Standby mode. If Standby mode is enabled, normal PC operation resumes once an interrupt (such as a key press or mouse ... (view more)

I received a fascinating question the other day from Infopackets Reader John B. He writes: " Dear Dennis, I just read about a new privacy program which is able to hides files inside jpeg image files. My question is: If I downloaded a jpeg file from ... the Internet, can it have a virus hidden inside? The reason why I ask is because I found a jpeg image file in my temporary Internet file folder. When I tried to open it, I was told that the file .exe could not be located. I immediately deleted the jpeg and am worried that my PC is now infected. What do you think? " My response: What you ... (view more)

Since yesterday's article on Tracing the Origins of an Email Abuser through IP addresses, I have received two interesting comments from Readers. The first message comes a user named 'Luvaas', who writes: " Dear Dennis, I suspect that someone has ... accessed my online cell phone account and has snooped around my phone records. I have a pretty good idea who did it, but the phone company tells me that they have no way they can trace this individual. Any ideas? " Side note: IP address stands for Internet Protocol. All computers connected to the Internet have a unique IP address, which is ... (view more)

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article based on the dangers associated with file sharing software (such as Kazaa). In a nutshell, the article explains how file sharing programs compromise computer security and open a gateway to viruses, Remote Access ... Trojans (RATs), and hacker s. At the end of the article, I provided a link to PestScan, which is free program people can use to scan their computers for malicious software -- all through a web browser interface and without having to download or install anything. I suppose it must have completely slipped my mind when I wrote the article, but, I forgot ... (view more)

Over the weekend, I received a fascinating question from Infopackets Reader Ric J.: " Hi Dennis! I just read your email regarding the eBook, 'Email For Newbies v2.1', and have a question about email headers. I know that email headers show persons IP ... address, but, is there anyway that I can find out where a person lives? The reason I ask is because I been having a problem with a person and the only thing I have is the IP address of the individual. Any help would be great; thanks! " My response: The answer is that, yes, you can track the origin of an email to a certain extent -- ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ric J. asks: " Dear Dennis, If I [load Internet Explorer and then] go into Tools -> Internet Options and clean out the History, Temp Files, and the Web Cookies, will that take care of things I might not want [others to] trace ... or pull up [on my computer]?" My Response: Unfortunately, clearing out your Internet History, Temp Files, and Cookies aren't enough to 'clear your tracks', per se. Virtually anyone can hop on your PC and trace where you have been by accessing your Most Recently Used Files history (MRU), such as: Media Player history, Document history (MS ... (view more)