There's nothing magical about the number 28. But after reading a new report from Earthlink and Webroot software that there is an average of 28 spyware programs running on each PC, I checked that figure against my own computer.

Using Ad-Aware 6.0, I discovered, "yup," that’s how many internal monitoring programs I found alive and well (not necessarily well for me) and beavering away in the background on my hard drive recording who knows what.

Welcome to the next edition of being looked at all the time, everywhere, and anywhere when you venture onto the World Wide Web.

First, what is spyware?

Yankee Group defines it ever so clinically: "Spyware gathers and transmits information from the user's PC without (italics mine) consent." The Boston based high-tech consulting firm continues: "Most information collected by spyware is harmless Web-browser information and is a minor (italics mine again) invasion of privacy. However, the confidentialty of other files stored on the PC can be at risk."

Note the two words italicized above: "Without" as in without consent. And, "minor," like, "we’ll just pick your pocket for change, not bills – this time."

There is nothing minor in my book about deliberate, skillfull, breaking and entering with possible theft as a motive. And that is what spyware can do online and has the potential to do when placed on anyone’s PC without his/her knowledge or approval.

Yankee Group also mentions another type of software in the same breath as spyware – adware.

Again, Yankee Group's definition: "Adware displays pop-up advertisements." Sophisticated software can place these annoying at best, thieving at worst, pop-up ads whether or not the website you visit – voluntarily visit – launches a pop up ad. For example, you might be looking at website on running shoes and wonder how that Viagra ad hoofed it onto your screen. Adware makes it possible.

Here’s the killer app for both the spyware and adware definition from Yankee Group: "The increasing sophistication and complexity of website scripting makes the proliferation of adware and spyware possible. Website scripts can install software, alter browser settings, and create, change, or copy files from a PC. Scripting enables the distribution of viruses from infected websites."

This spyware stuff makes surfing the Web as reassuring as buying a pair of blinds without knowing that they are transparent from the outside looking in.

PC World, in its definition of spyware, adds a little understated beef to the potentially pernicious nature of spyware: "…once installed, they run surreptitiously in the background and can be difficult to detect and remove."

Here are some more findings from the Earthlink and Webroot Software study: In addition to finding 28 spyware programs running on each of the computers that they scanned (and they scanned a little more than 1 million PCs) they also found a Trojan horse on a computer in 30 percent of all the systems they scanned. A Trojan horse is a more clandestine form of monitoring programs on a computer.

For those of you who didn’t study Greek mythology, the new movie "Troy" will make perfectly clear that Trojan horses are not something to feed a lump of sugar. In mythology, the Greek use of one eliminated, repeat, eliminated, the city of Troy and all its inhabitants. A software Trojan horse, used by geek and non-geek alike, at the very least, raises concerns about identify theft, monitoring (and capture) of passwords to banking and financial accounts, replication of your e-mail distribution list so as to send itself and do the same to all of your friends in your personal email address book.

The study, which covers only the first three months of 2004, detected 184,000 Trojan horse programs on the systems scanned and a similar number of system monitoring programs. Both Earthlink and Webroot say this is the first of what will be regular updates in their tracking the prevalence of spyware.

Likewise for this Monitor Scitechblog. We plan to routinely update you on issues of privacy and security related to spyware. More important, we will suggest ways and means to make sure your computer remains free of such stuff unless you authorize its use on your computer. We all need to be fully cognizant of ways to prevent such malicious software from causing harm as a result of using our computers on the Web.

Next: State and federal laws underconsideration to prevent the illegal use of spyware.

Note: This is the first of a three part series. See: Spyware: the need for legislation,
and Spyware protection: Taking some simple steps (by Jim Bencivenga)