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From: Steve Gilbert [smgilbert@ameritech.net]
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 3:43 PM
To: advisorycommittee@ftc.gov

Subject: Wide scale electronic espionage

I am writing today to bring to your attention a wide scale case of covert intelligence gathering and your organization can to mind as a possible medium for stopping this.

The issue is an application, provided by Radiate (AKA Aureate Media Corporation), is now part of over 300 programs available on the internet including such well-known titles as CuteFTP. Aureates program covertly gathers information about your TCP/IP based usage and sends this information back to Aureate. My collegues and I are horrified at this apparently gross act of eletronic espionage. Is this legal?

To assist you, I'm providing links to web sites that explain some additional details:

The web site for the software in question - http://www.aureate.com/

A clear description of the problem can be found at - http://grc.com/optout.htm 

Articles on this topic by Brian McWilliams of InternetNews.com - http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,,12_324131,00.html   and http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article/0,2171,12_309951,00.html

C-Net News Article - http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1558696.html?tag=st.ne.1002    

Symantec's Statement - http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2000031016363336

Although I am not an attorney, this certainly strikes me as an invasion of privacy and it certainly sounds like a case of unauthorized use of computer systems. The actions of this company sound like what I have seen "hackers" charged with in the past. I have already started warning my friends and familly as well as spoken to the FBI (who seemed less than interested officially). What more can be done? I'm sure there are thousands of unsuspecting internet users out there who have fallen victim.

Stephen M. Gilbert,
Microsoft Certified Professional
Telephone (440) 942 - 1697
E-Mail smgilbert@ameritech.net