In computer news this week:

The problems with America Online, part 3.

AOL is officially the largest internet service provider in the world, with over 25 million users, most of them in the U.S. The bad news is that AOL has failed to deliver and perform the services its millions of subscribers signed up for, as evidenced by lawsuits in every state against the company.

As a long time AOL user, I've encountered all the problems people complain about. The service is at times incredibly slow; slow to get on, slow to respond, slow when reading and sending email, and slow when surfing the internet. You also get numerous disconnects from the service as a fact of life. AOL uses its own proprietary email system, different from the rest of the internet world, and AOL users receive the highest amount of spam email, maybe 50% of all email you receive. AOL defaults all users to receiving spam from AOL itself and its advertisers.

Most of the technical support I have seen on AOL is extremely poor, and I have read statements on the internet by ex-AOL people alleging that the average AOL Technical support person has only 10 days of training, and usually has no computer background.

AOL advertises heavily and gives out free trial offers. All their TV ads show happy people amazed with AOL and the internet. The majority of AOL users are new to both the computer world and to the internet.

But there's a very dark side to AOL I have experienced over several years.

I believe there is very little security on AOL. If you remember the Melissa virus, you might recall it was first spread by an AOL user. But then it turned out that the AOL user's account had been stolen, but the user wasn't aware of it. AOL users get their accounts stolen by responding to hacker emails that seem to be official AOL emails asking for verification of their name and password due to some computer errors, or perhaps some free giveaway. A smart hacker will then use the stolen account judiciously, and the legitimate AOL user will probably never know.

And what do hackers do with stolen AOL screennames? Lots of things, ranging from spreading a Melissa virus, to trying to break into private or government computers, to trying to steal your credit card numbers, to sending thousands of spam or pornographic messages across the internet.

You don't even have to steal an Aol account. There are thousands of spam messages sent hourly by people using accounts on the AOL free trial offers.

You can be in an AOL chatroom and receive a porno email sent to the entire chatroom, which is why AOL advises against letting your kids visit chat rooms. You can then look up the screename that sent the porno email and even locate them on AOL, and you will see them going from chat room to chat room doing the same thing. Reporting them to AOL seems to do nothing. The screenames are either stolen, or phony. And if caught, they simply change names and keep on going.

That's the scariest thing about AOL to me; it's not in control of its own service. The maniacs are running the asylum, while the company is focusing instead on body counts and mergers to take over the world. Its customer service and overall service are really poor. It's the biggest, it's cheap, and that's about it.

Next week - leaving AOL, and the many things you have to consider.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 Email: fdspokane@aol.com