On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 22:29:31 GMT, "
wrote:

Yup. Heard on a computor discussion that XP was as open as a barn door and
over time
the computor got slower and slower.

Hi Art,

I hear that so often now.

They also stated that Netscape
apparently not
subject that much to attacks

Netscape has its own problems, but not like the MS suite.

Didn't take much notice at the time until I
bought a 3 Gig processor
and after a while checked how much junk had unknowingly been attached to it,
one of which
had slowed me down till it shut down completely!

I only have to look at your headers to see you use Outlook Express
which is a piece of trash. It has the worst reputation as being a
virus whore.

I wouldn't be surprised if this newsnet did add junk every time you linked
to it.

News groups might be mined for emails for subsequent Spam, but there
is nothing in the NNTP (protocol) that would allow anyone to attach
anything to your computer. This kind of stuff comes automatically as
a customer enhancement by MS for IE and OE users and arrives by email
or through visits on the Web. There are no trojan horses, viruses,
cookies, advertising (pop up windows that is, there is still Spam of
course) or spyware that can infect your machine through participating
in newsgroup activity.

I've gotten what looks like a potential virus sent to me because they
got my name here. WAMU frequently is part of the subject heading or
in the message. This may not be a virus (as the ISP certifies it is
not) but rather a Phising link. No problem, my mail reader is not
going to run it, open it, or do anything without my permission. I
simply trash that stuff. Been doing that for 10 years with either
Eudora or Agent and never been burnt except once (trusted a friend) -
then fixed that the next day after the infected Comcast ISP servers
stopped thrashing themselves to death. Yup, they were using MS
servers.

For anyone seriously interested in the mortar between their firewall
bricks, go to:
http://grc.com/default.htm
and page down to the heading "Your Three Musketeers"
There are at least a half dozen security checks there that can inspect
your machine for back doors and potential hacker access. Very simple
software, loads fast, runs fast, and says quite plainly in English,
"You are Safe" or "You are in Trouble."

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC