If you are not slightly paranoid about the dangers of the internet then you should be !
During the times when people just logged on for an hour and logged off agin when they were done your computer was not exposed to the internet for very long. Times have changes I am afraid, as most of us now are permanently connected to the internet as long as our computers are switched on. This gives potential attackers and hackers much more time to find any weaknesses in your computer.
Even when you are not downloading stuff companies and individuals are testing your computer for open ports so that they can get in and walk about in there to see what they can find or where they can do harm.
Getting paranoid yet ?
If you are on broadband and you DON'T have a firewall as a minimum you are going to get attacked sooner or later.
A Webfilter is a programme that hides much of the information that your browser sends about you and your computer every time that you connect to a website, ( Headers ! ). It also kills popups and popunders and does many more things depending on how sophisticated it is.
__________________ Paps.
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and attached consumer website
If you are connected to the internet and you don't have a firewall protecting your open ports, ( there can be up to 65,000 of these little buggers attached to every IP address that your computer uses ), these ports are just sitting there waiting for some smartass hacker to pop a Trojan in there and muck about with your computer's innards.
Here are a couple of sites that will explain more about IP addresses and open ports:
I started this thread so that people who are interested in the internet, ( most of us I think ), could "discuss" ( this is a discussion forum is it not ? ) about our fears and interests in this subject; especially when we see so much about viruses and trojan horses and hacking etc' these days.
I did not put this threadstart on the techie forum as I wanted to see just how much the ordinary punters know about their computers and what they know about the dangers of the internet.
( No point in doing it over there as they will all know these risks and many of the solutions too ! ).
As this is quite a youngish forum I thought that maybe I could start a discussion that might help a few of the not-so-techie types like us.
Are you getting me yet Clovie ?
__________________ Paps.
Click my sig'-pic' to go to my forum
and attached consumer website
Do you think you don't need these forms of protection? Yes, probably... And I should also probably be more worried about my computer's "health," but I've never thought about it much tbh
Thanks to the link to Raz's quick guide to computer security.
All good stuff I think !
Here is another bit of info' from a website that specialises in world internet security:
Can't link to it so I will type it out myself.
The average "life" of an unprotected computer on the internet can be as short as FIVE MINUTES according to an international group that tracks internet threats.
The ISC...( Internet Storm Centre )... monitors the world wide web for viruses and worms. These attacks create a particular type of traffic on the internet and when an unexpected surge is detected the ISC issues a world-wide warning.
Many threats remain particularly active long after most anti-virus companies have issued patches because not everybody takes the necessary steps to protect their computers.
The ICS's detection system has now found that the time it takes to launch an automated attack - where hackers use software to scour the internet for unprotected PCs - could be as brief as five minutes. Even new PC's that have anti-virus software pre-installed are vulnerable because downloading the initial virus-update-file from the company's website can take time, especially on dialup connections.
The ICS warned users of new computers to check with the seller about which updates have been installed on it. Anyone buying a new PC before Christmas is advised to make sure it has been updated with Windows XP service pack 2, which has it's own firewall.
I love it how you put your own interpretation on the questions.
The last three...I will rephrase....just for you.
When I was talking about a "spybot" I had no intention of meaning your actual "bot" . A spybot, ( which I am sure you know fine-well ), is a colloquial term for a programme like Ad-Aware that seeks out spy-programmes that are inadvertently downloaded quietly to your computer as you go about your normal internet business.
If you do NOT have a "spybot" you will be sitting right now with upwards of 30 or 40 or more spys looking at what you do and where you go on your computer and sending this information back to spy-central.
A "webfilter" programme is a programme that stops your computer from sending out information in the normal browser headers about you and your browser. It can also do many more tasks like killing pop-ups and pop-unders and stopping some potentially dangerous interactive software - in the form of Java-scripts/Flash-programmes/ ACTIV-X-prog's and others - from downloading and running when you don't want them to.
The "forms of protection" have nothing to do with THAT kind of protection, ( if that is what you are getting at )......OK ?
__________________ Paps.
Click my sig'-pic' to go to my forum
and attached consumer website
If you read the information pages here you will see just how clever the proxomitron is as it filters the data that comes and goes from your computer in a thousand configurable ways including the easy handling of multi proxy-servers.
If any of you want to have such a webfilter on your computer you can find a number of Proxomitron clones by popping the word "Proxomitron" into GOOGLE
You can find similar webfilter programmes like The Proxomitron from THIS site !
__________________ Paps.
Click my sig'-pic' to go to my forum
and attached consumer website
Last edited by Papaumau on Aug 31st, 2004 at 04:47 PM
Mine's one of these always online things (go cable!), and I have all those things except a webfilter...and frickin need em! I can't tell you how many times my computer's been held hostage by spyware, or viruses, or the system goes unstable because of these things. This hunk of junk wouldn't work if I didn't have all these programs
KMC Community Forums
How paranoid are you ?
Aug 30th, 2004 12:21 PM
. A spybot, ( which I am sure you know fine-well ), is a colloquial term for a programme like Ad-Aware that seeks out spy-programmes that are inadvertently downloaded quietly to your computer as you go about your normal internet business.
