Internet Tips

ICQ's Unlocked Doors

America Online's ICQ chat tool provides lots of features other chat programs don't offer. But the more capabilities a Net-connected program has, the less secure it is. The ICQ disclaimer warns that the chat program is "vulnerable" and should be considered "unsecured." Specifically, its users may be subject to "spoofing, eavesdropping, sniffing, spamming, breaking passwords, harassment, fraud, forgery, imposturing, electronic trespassing, tampering, hacking, nuking, system contamination including ... viruses, worms, and Trojan horses causing unauthorized, damaging or harmful access and/ or retrieval of information and data on your computer and other forms of activity that may even be considered unlawful."

Still want to chat? Go ahead, but protect yourself from the foregoing list of threats. First, regard every file attachment as a potential attack. As in your e-mail program, executable files (files with the .exe, .com, .dll, and .bat extensions) transferred through a chat program may contain viruses; and Word and Excel files may harbor macro viruses. Before you open any attachment, save it to your hard disk and scan it with an updated antivirus program. Recently, a password-stealing ICQ Trojan horse fooled hundreds of users by masquerading as an image file.

Second, as elsewhere online, the less you reveal about yourself, the better. When starting out with ICQ, you need to disclose only your ICQ number and possibly your e-mail address. True, ICQ does offer you the chance to share your enchantment with pre-Columbian kitchen utensils, so you may prefer to ignore this advice. To lower your ICQ profile, click the program's ICQ button, select Add/Change Current User, View/Change My Details, and remove personal information.

To block spam, click the Main tab and choose "Don't publish my Primary email address, use it for password retrieval purposes" option. Don't share your addresses and phone numbers either. Anyone who needs to reach you can use ICQ, right?

Next, click the ICQ button, and select Preferences & Security, Security & Privacy. Click the Security tab, check the "Do not publish IP address" option, and make sure the "Allow others to view my online presence on the World Wide Web" option below it is unchecked. Do coworkers, kids, or roommates have physical access to your computer? If so, select High in the Security Level area to prevent unauthorized use of your account. If you start to get ICQ pager spams, try turning off the service by clicking the Ignore List tab and checking "Do not accept WWPager messages." You can also screen out normal ICQ messages that contain certain words or strings (such as "sex" or "XXX") by clicking the Words List tab, then the Unlock button. After entering your ICQ password, add likely spam keywords to your filter list by clicking the Add button. Check "Discard events with objectionable words" under Filter Action.

For more information on this subject, go to MoonLight Software.