If you browser is showing the lock on that web site then that means that the
all the exchanges between you and the web site are encrypted. It is not a
completely foolproof encryption but nobody outside of places like nsa have
got the computer horsepower to break it. Plus they would have to intercept
your actual traffic to even begin and the comm companies have got the major
routing nodes and lines pretty well locked down.

You do have some vulnerability in that you are assuming that the other party
has taken the effort to secure their site and servers. This is not likely
to be a problem with big companies like amazon, ebay, walmart, etc. But mom
and pop operations that have decided to do their own servers may not be so
good. Usually you can tell if the store is doing their own thing or buying
web services form a big web server shop.

I once received an invitation to list our vacation rental propery on a new
site for free. I went to it and signed up to get an account. After I
snooped around a while I realized that they had left access to their
vacation site user id/password file open on their server. There along with
everyone else was my new id and password to get on their site. I downloaded
it and emailed them a copy suggesting they clean it up.

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"Clams Canino" wrote in message
ink.net...

"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
news:356Yg.3062

To infiltrate and then what? Call home with what info it finds?


Most spyware is benign and just tracks marketing preferences so as to
spam
you better. Dangerous spyware can indeed phone home vital info you type
in, so as to rob you.

I've never seen a single thing come to me via Ebay. It's usually those
"freeware" sites that come complete with "free spyware" added in. That's
why I specified a *safe* place for whatshisname to download DVDShrink3.2.

The best way to be safe is to download nothing, past that, be SURE of
your
source for "freeware".
The best source for getting spyware added is the "free anti-spyware"
sites.
etc....

-W


Question for you computer experts:

How safe is it to buy something on-line with a credit card using the
vendor's "secure" encrypted ordering page?

Eisboch