The Complete Guide to Internet Privacy

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Granted, there have been few, if any, public reports of hackers exploiting the likes of Symantec's pcAnywhere, Mirabilis ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, or active update services such as Norton's LiveUpdate Pro or Windows' Critical Update Manager. The potential, however, is still there. Both AOL's AIM and ICQ Let others transfer files to your computer but not run them - so check the security settings of these programs to allow only downloads you know about and acknowledge first. My advice: Dump these utilities out of memory and only load them when you need them.

You also leave your system open to hackers if you run a Web server, FTP or Telnet host that allows others to connect to your system. If you must have a personal Web page, host it on one of the many free or cheap services or on your ISP's system rather than on your own.

If you want to know which of your applications connects to the Internet and you'd like to be able to control them doing so, install ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com. This little gem flags you anytime a network-savvy application comes up and might try to make a connection, and it also tells you if external sites are trying to connect to you from the Internet. You can then elect to stop the action, or let to it go free. ZoneAlarm now protects all of my systems.

Also, install a virus protection program and leave it running in the background. Then, scan your system for viruses periodically - daily may be overkill, but weekly is recommended.

4. MAIL SMART
Your e-mail address can be used for login access to obtain files via FTP (another Internet method used to copy files between computers). But allowing your browser or an FTP program like CuteFTP or WS-FTP to use your e-mail address for logins exposes it to others. My answer to this is to not use Netscape Messenger, Outlook Express or Outlook for my personal e-mail because there are such close ties to the browser. If you do use these programs for e-mail, then provide a fake e-mail address for FTP logins. While millions of people have been at risk with the Melissa and Love Bug viruses - both of which are ActiveX scripts that exploit Outlook's capability to integrate with a computer's operating system - thousands of us worked merrily away without concern because we use Eudora, Pegasus or other e-mail software that are not tied to the browser or operating system and do not run Java, JavaScript or ActiveX program code embedded in e-mails.

Even if you choose to use Web-based email like Hotmail or another free Webmail account, your e-mail address may still be at risk due to the browser's vulnerabilities. Remember, none of these security concerns began with or benefit from the hardware or software used - they have to do with the people involved. My supposedly private Hotmail address and a couple of my Netcom (now MindSpring) e-mail addresses have been stolen (I sus pect) from within those entities or made accessible by the loose security of earlier systems. This resulted in my address ending up on tons of e-mail marketing lists. The addresses used on these systems are not easy to guess - someone had to acquire the account lists from those ISPs and give them to someone to use:

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