Dear Editor,

In your February edition you have an article based on testing of computer security software by Andrew Laughlin - your security expert.



I am writing to you about an issue that is not directly a consumer issue, but is an issue of public concern, and is relevant to computer security.

I am contacting WHICH because I do not know who or what might be a more appropriate organisation to address my concern.

Perhaps you could forward this email on to Andrew Laughlin for his comment.

===========================================

THe issue concerns the well-known and publicised major international local area contact and messaging service:

[ www.nextdoor.co.uk ]

I signed up for this site.

I asked for a postcard to be sent to me, which contained a code that enabled me to complete the registration process.

This card took about 5 days to arrive, during which time my hotmail account was mysteriously mal-functioning and unusable for a couple of days.

Upon registering the code on the card at the [www.nextddor.co.uk] site and completing the process, I was granted access. But I was shocked and amazed at what I was first presented with.

There was a list of email addresses.

This was composed of my contact address lists of both this hotmail account that I am using for this email, and from another that I access from the same computer.

Above the list of emails, the accompanying message was: "Would you like us to send messages to all these addresses?"

But I had given third different email address to NEXTDOOR.

One of these accounts, and the third account, I open using Firefox.

The other I open using Internet Explorer

These lists are normally, obviously, private and should be only accessible to me.

How did this oranisation manage to do this?

It seems to me that they could only have got these by dropping clever trojan/spyware onto my computer.

I am not aware of any other way.

So I made I have now done a thorough security sweep of my computer which revealed trojans and viruses, which I have now cleaned off.

I have now changed my anti-virus package.

Certainly I was previously careless as regards security.

Unfortunately I do not have sufficient skill or knowledge to analyse this further.

Is what this organisation [www.nextdoor.co.uk] doing legal?

I would be grateful to receive any comments.

Thank you you have any comments?