The following is my personal response to a file called FRAUD.ZIP which
I found on several local bulletin boards. The text file described the
fact that the PRODIGY STAGE.DAT file contains unrightfully information
about ones system, such as names of files and personal information such
as in check books and other data.


I examined STAGE.DAT and sure enough I did find about 200 Kbytes of
information that's part of my system and which does have no connection
with the PRODIGY software. Here are some examples:

Portions of source code for my C compiler, including junks of
libraries;
Segments of data and code of the C compiler itself;
Personal data from an information manager I use;
Fragments of directories, and so on...

I found out about this a couple of years back when I first looked at
STAGE.DAT - and I did get upset too.


But I do not believe that PRODIGY is messing with my data though it
would be easy for them to do so (and you NEVER would know):

Portion of the PRODIGY package is written in C (Microsoft I believe). C
makes use of memory management via functions called block allocaters
(malloc(), alloc()...) to set aside an available portion of RAM which
the program (PRODIGY software in this case) needs for variables,
data buffering, remote code segments and such.
Memory allocation (using C malloc) just makes sure that RAM is reserved
for whatever need and returns a pointer back to the program (of that
RAM block). What malloc() doesn't do is wipe anything out that is still
left in memory such as garbage from whatever you did run since you
turned on your system.
Here's an example: Let's say you just booted your computer. You run a
word processor and edit a large file. Your document resides somewhere
in memory while you edit it (obviously). Now you exit your editor and
run PRODIGY, which in turn goes ahead and sets up its stuff, such as
allocating memory. Nobody knows at this time what RAM resources are
available at which memory location so it is very possible that free RAM
that did hold your document from the editor before is all of a sudden
inside that memory block (again, the memory does not get 'zapped' or
'cleaned up' by malloc).

PRODIGY saves memory frequently - such as that reserved part of RAM
(this is done for speed reasons - certain repetitive features and data
of the service don't have to be transmitted again - they just get pulled
off your hard disk because they have been saved before). If memory is
written to your disk but if it has not all been filled with PRODIGY
data yet - whatever garbage it holds in that leftover, unused portion
of it will be written to your disk also.


Anyway, I am not working for PRODIGY nor am I completely satisfied with
this growing service yet. Nevertheless I do not believe that it does
snoop around our systems though this thought is very tempting to me
also.

There have been a few unhappy PRODIGY customers which were trying to
make use of its former 'free electronic mail' service for their own
soliciting interests. That's when PRODIGY started changing their
policies on mail and now charges $0.25 per message (after you have used
up the 25 free personal mailings per month). These individuals which
have been hit by this got very upset and started boycotting the
service. It just might be possible that FRAUD.ZIP was partially
originated by these people.

FRAUD.ZIP makes a point which I do not dispute and raises valid
questions. I just wanted to state my view on this issue.


Finally: I think PRODIGY - since it could have the ability to snoop
around in ones system - should provide on request its users with a
written statement as to the fact that it will not gather ANY
information from the users property. - Or they fix their software
so any memory is 'zapped' before it gets used.



I hope you understood my point (I am German and English is a little
difficult for me).



Franz, PRODIGY ID: KCGV38A