The Web, aside from its impact on the computer industry, has also brought on a marketing bonanza. As unsuspecting users bound about the Web, cookies, applets, and other seemingly innocuous programs are tracking their every move, recording data that will prime the pumps of many new, Web-based marketing and advertising campaigns.
In response to this phenomenon, a product has been designed to intercept and scan these "downloadable" technologies - Java, ActiveX, cookies, JavaScript - before they enter a user's machine. X-Ray Vision, created by the Atlanta-based Intracept Inc., prevents any transmission or retrieval of data between a Web site and a computer.
"We want to let you see who's watching you while surfing on the Net," said Richard Wagner, president of Intracept. "We'll disable them (downloadables), and if the user wants to reload with them turned on, it's only a few mouse-clicks away."
To prevent Web sites from placing or collecting information from a machine's hard drive, X-Ray Vision can be set up to block any or all downloadable technologies; it can also be configured to alert the user as to which downloadables are present, blocked, and allowed. And unlike other security products, which download first and ask questions later, Wagner said, X-Ray will prevent a Web page from launching them in the first place.
"Information being stored on a user's computer without them knowing it is not necessarily harmful or malicious, but when you look at the entire scope of what can happen, there are a number of different hazards a user can run into," said Wagner, adding that 80 percent of the top 100 visited Web sites now employ downloadable programs.
Although the occurrence of malicious applets or ActiveX controls is, as yet, uncommon, the emergence of more executable programs on the Web has prompted existing security vendors to develop technologies that block and monitor these applications as well. Finjan Software is one company that has built a business around blocking Java applets and ActiveX controls, and major companies like Cisco, CheckPoint, and DEC plan to incorporate its technology into other products, primarily firewalls.
