Get a Firewall

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Decided to put this in Forum Related instead of Science & Technology.

If you've read all the posts here, you will have noticed that some folks have suffered cyber attacks. They were apparently "personal", but there are also impersonal attacks -- viruses/worms/Trojan horses -- and attempts to "tap into" your computer.

I am assuming you have anti-virus software. I also recommend getting a firewall. There is a good one, free for individuals (us), called ZoneAlarm. You can get it at www.zonelabs.com

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Answers

I'm really glad you brought that up, Joy. I use ZoneAlarm and highly recommend it to everyone. I've tried BlackIce Defender but ZoneAlarm is MUCH better - much easier to use and more control over how your other software programs interface with the Internet. I just can't say enough good things about it.

Using ZoneAlarm and an anti-virus program is the best way to fortify your computer, IMO...

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Could you please explain to me what a firewall is and how it is beneficial? Thanks.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

diane, It's like a having a security fence, security guard, guard dogs, and an alarm system all installed around your house but in this case it's for your computer.

Here are a few articles that explain it much better than I can:

Shields Up! - Internet Connection Security for Windows Users

ZoneAlarm - A free and decent firewall

ZoneAlarm - Personal Firewall

ZoneAlarm: Is An "Intelligent Firewall" Necessarily Better?

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


There a really good site for explaining it, but I couldn't find it last night (stupid, didn't bookmark it). Found it today. The main site is www.grc.com, but you'd probably most like to see this page: https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Basically, a firewall controls who/what can get access to your computer and what can go out from your computer. There is information going into and out of our computers (when we have no firewall) all the time, that we are totally unaware of. Depending on your definition of benign, much of it is relatively benign. Some may not be. A lot of it is gathering information on our Internet using habits. I find that "relatively benign", but annoying.

I'm not good at explaining these things, at least not in a few sentences. What I suggest is that you go to the second site I listed above and use the buttons TEST MY SHIELDS! and PROBE MY PORTS! Read what it says after each test has been performed. This explains it pretty well. Don't worry too much about the technical stuff. You don't need to know why the burgler is trying to break into your place nor the method he's using, you just need to be able to stop him (I hope that's a good analogy). If you install the firewall, you will have to spend some time reading the site and playing with it to get it set up the way you want it. At first, I had it set to tell me everytime someone tried to access my computer, but it got so annoying, I just turned the notification off. You can still check the logs to see what's been going on.

I use a dial-up ISP, and the only disadvantage I have found is that my free Internet answering machine (CallWave) no longer will work unless I set my security to 'medium', in which case I might as well not have the firewall. So now I can't use the answering machine.

I know Jay Blair has checked in over here, perhaps he'll jump in and explain it better. Or anyone else more "techie" than I.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


I see Jim and I were posting at the same time. The Shields Up! one is the same as the one I recommended. Use his link, it'll be faster.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Thank you for your time, patience, and willingness to explain. I have to admit I was absolutely clueless as to what it even was. Will most definately do some research and install one. Thanks again - diane (goats)

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

We use a Macintosh computer. I have heard of very few problems with viruses etc. Don't know if it's because of the Mac operating system or because Mac users are a smaller target group.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of things did people post (or think they posted) that got themselves targeted? I've posted some pretty negative and sarcastic things in my time!

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Well, mine started right after I confronted Little Bit. Got several virus's sent in two days, a bit of hate type mail, and my mail box at yahoo was filled with pornographic material.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

That's AWFUL, diane.

I hope you don't mind my asking but were the viruses and porn coming from people you know at the CS forum or were they from annonymous accounts? I don't expect you to name any names but I'm just curious...

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


I didn't get anything personally. Perhaps I am not confrontational enough? Don't know. I got a warning from someone else after they were attacked, so perhaps the firewall I installed in short order stopped an attack, or maybe I never got one. Also got a free, web- based email address. My antiviral software (Norton) hasn't ever told me it's found one, so maybe no one tried.

I did get an email attachment with (apparently) the Snow White virus in it (I didn't open the attachment), but it seems that came via an email list I am on, because numerous others there got it at the same time.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001



My story is pretty much the same as Diane's, right down to the person I had the confrontation with. Norton Antivirus caught the Snow White virus for me, but apparently something else was able to slip through. The virus scans come up clean, but my computer freezes while booting up about 75% of the time, and my DH's "Baldurs Gate II" game keeps mysteriously uninstalling itself. It was working fine before I started posting on the forum. I think that we're going to end up reformatting the hard drive and starting over, it's just getting to be too frustrating. I thought that firewalls were just for people with cable modems, I didn't know that dial-ups needed them too. I'll have to check out those sites.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

The virus stuff came from apparently anonymous accounts because I actually tryed to send them back from where they came from and they came back undeliverable. My son has insisted that if I participate on forums that I need a current virus program, so I update my Norton's almost daily. It has caught everything so far. Sherri, do you live update your virus program?? Could be you have a new one and your program isn't finding it. The phorn stuff I don't know either. Not names I recognized. I just started deleting anything that came from someone I didn't know.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

I had a virus awhile back, the trojan horse and have no idea where it came from and it was on my work computer. Come to think of it, it was around the time that I got in on one of the discussions about over popluation where I always got jumped on and then I would back off posting. There was some nasty stuff going on at BWH on the forum but I don't think anyone got this kind of stuff. This forum is like a breath of fresh air. I don't post there at all anymore and I lived and breathed that forum for a long time.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


I've been thinking about this virus stuff today. I've corresponded with a nimber of folks who are here at this forum and noted a number of the people who had gotten viruses and actually thot I had been missed in the attacks until a couple of days ago.

On CS, after one of the heated debates on Religion I had posted a URL for ReligiousTolerance.org, thinking it might be of interest to some at cs. Not long after that I notice that when I go there to rt.org I type in the url and it shunts me to a porn site. I thot it was my putor screwing up but now I wonder.

Also, fwiw and I havn't visited this site myself yet but I heard about infostar.com I guess it has a bunch of techie stuff and numerous links for help with putor stuff.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Hi John! I don't know about the porn site, but the rel. tolerance site moved (I don't know where, either!) so maybe someone else got the address (or ?) btw, it was the day of your last email to me that I got slammed big time on my peecee!! I figured we would meet up again online somewhere...I just didn't want to email you directly and start it all up again after I finally got cleaned up!!

I have a firewall now, but I still don't want to tempt fate too much by saying I'm "secure!"

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001



Oh, and John (you probably know this anyway) the forum at relig. tolerance ended up in online "fisticuffs" at the end, which is perhaps why they moved! (So everyone enjoy the peace and quiet we have here right now!!!)

(A year ago at CS, a wise person was talking about how Backwoods Home forum was getting trashed and how nice the CS forum was! Y'all remember??? And John, I think it was you who had posted the question about all the newbies all of a sudden!)

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


Put in http://www.religioustolerance.org/ and got a website for Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Is that the one you were looking for?

John, did you check your URL? Maybe your bookmarks got screwed up somehow? Can a virus do that?

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


I checked out the "www.religioustolerance.org site" and had not problem. Looks pretty interesting, I'll go back later when I have more time.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


My gosh I can't believe what I'm reading! Would and could those people do that? I have spoken up and I have gotten a ton of porn and some really nasty e-mail but someone sending a virus? Thats really terrible! To Sheepish who's so kind and reasonable. I wondered where some people went! Can you imagine the e-mail Jumpoff must have recieved after a few of his exchanges!!!!....Kirk

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

That's the site, but I think the *forum* there has "moved on..." I remember reading that on their forum, but speaking of screwed up, it could certainly be *me*!!!!

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

On CS, after one of the heated debates on Religion I had posted a URL for ReligiousTolerance.org, thinking it might be of interest to some at cs. Not long after that I notice that when I go there to rt.org I type in the url and it shunts me to a porn site. I thot it was my putor screwing up but now I wonder.

John,

You sent that URL to me in an email, remember? I think you sent it about 4 days ago when we were talking about Tempest Smith.

I clicked on the URL at that time and was re-directed to a porn sight, too. Now it seems to be working all right.

I wonder if their web-site was hacked?

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001


I don't know enuf about the putor stuff to have an opinion as to whether they were hacked or not, tho it seems to be pc specific. Just guessing here but Jim maybe when I sent you the link I accidently clicked on the wrong one in my "history". I've got two of them in there---one's right and the other wrong. I can get there from a couple back doors too. They did move their forum tho because Inside the web, the former forum host, was a casualty of the market crunch. The new host is e-groups I think. Its kinda odd because one of my RT.org links shunts me to rosedeparis.com porn site and the other gets me to RT.org home page, no problem, and I click to forum from there.

Its odd too, because while I was driving my route today, thinking about this stuff, I kept coming back to little bit. I wonder if this is what she thinks Jesus would do?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


LOL! Well, if that's what Jesus is REALLY about then maybe I should give Christianity a second try! :-D

OK, I've got this figured out. The URL John sent me is spelled slightly different from the one Joy and Judy posted.

John's URL:
www.ReligousTolerance.Org

Joy and Judy's URL:
www.religioustolerance.org

There's one less "i" in John's URL...

This one really stumped me at first but after I pasted them together It all became clear.

I've heard of scummy web-sites doing this to fool people into coming to their porn sites if the person happens to accidentally mistype the URL. This is the first time I've seen it first hand, though.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


THANKS JIM! Mystery solved. Sorry Little Bit(I think) Here's the link for the direct access to ReligiousTolerance.Org forum

http://disc.server.com/Indices/148202.html

Copied and pasted to avoid spelling errors etc.

Which brings me back to an observation. I don't know of any MEN who got hacked, virused or hate mails from the CS low-life. I find that curious.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


AAgggggghhhhh! John! Don't tempt me with lines like that -- "I wonder if this is what she thinks Jesus would do?" Fighting with all my might to resist the snarky comment that pops into my mind . . . .

Actually, to be charitable, it wouldn't necessarily have to be HER, just someone who agreed with her position and decided to punish the opposition.

I doubt that JOJ got any bad stuff -- apparently, he doesn't use a real email addy.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


I emailed JOJ once and got a response from him, so his email address must have been valid at some point.

By the way, speaking of "Lil Bit", has she been missing from CS as of late. I don't read every thread, but the ones where she would post, for sure, I haven't seen a peep out of her.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


I think little bit has left the building. I hear she's hosting her own forum for "Christians" as she'd been gently corrected for her style of witnessing.

You may be right about it not actually being her. I've heard there's a site where a group of fundy putor nerds hang out who's mission in life is to make things miserable for those who don't believe as they do. What a world!

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


Interesting. I kind of thought that the source of my "problems" (ahem!) was one rather vociferous male (not Joel, though) who made some interesting accusations about my intentions to stir up the pot on the CS Forum. Since I had had some computer-related problems before at around a different time we were having a forum "discussion" to which he did not agree, I thought that might be a possibility. Who knows?

There is also the possibility that one person was posting under different names and email addresses, too. So the "personalities" you thought you were posting to/with at the forum may have actually been the same person using different names. Whatever...

Weird world, eh? I must say that I got a lot of mileage out of trying to guess who might be the same person posting under different names....analyzing syntax, spelling, etc. Was somewhat entertaining (for a short while!)

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001


Oh sheepish, I thought I was the only one thinking like that!!! After a while I got to laughing at myself because it would seem I was picking up the same sort of thinking that was creating the problem to begin with. My vote was it was not Little Bit. I don't agree with her views at all but I don't think she is malicious. I believe there is a lurker who would make the rifes between people deeper than they really are.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

And ain't it wierd how the paranoia spreads and then alienates people from one another?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

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