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Thread: Just installed ZoneAlarm this morning...

  1. #1
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    Just installed ZoneAlarm this morning...

    ... and holy shit there are a lot of people trying to access my computer! I know I can turn the notification thingie off, but it's been interesting to see what's going on.

    I'd say that it's blocking something about every ten minutes or so on average. For the price (free) I think you should get it if you don't have it already.

    ZoneAlarm

  2. #2
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    Welcome to 1999.

  3. #3
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    Get the IP address and Ping-Trace it to find out who it is.
    yepper

  4. #4
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    Originally posted by truth
    Welcome to 1999.
    Unecessarily harsh, I would submit.

  5. #5
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    Originally posted by iceman
    Unecessarily harsh, I would submit.
    ya but how did you last this long without it?

    i recently went from imac to windoze laptop. with the imac never really had to worry about it. with windoze, i was amazed at the number of hack attempts. i got something like 14,500 blocked by zonealarm since mid august.

    at lot of these are 'bots' which are programs that comb the web checking ip addresses one by one, looking for unsecure one. a lot of them seem to come from china, phillipines, or indonesia. prolly looking for credit card numbers or other personal info for a scam.

    imagine how much faster the net would be without this crap going on.

  6. #6
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    Originally posted by Ripzalot
    ya but how did you last this long without it?
    Well, I had ad-aware, spybot and norton plus the built-in (but lame) firewall, I guess that kept things under control.

    Does anybody know SpySweeper? The guy in the WSJ recommnded it the other day, but it's $30/year and SpyBot is free. Is it worth the bucks?

  7. #7
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    There is also a free version of spy sweeper.
    In drove this drunken madman and stopped on a dime! Unfortunately the dime was in Mr. Rococo's pocket!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman
    Well, I had ad-aware, spybot and norton plus the built-in (but lame) firewall, I guess that kept things under control.

    Does anybody know SpySweeper? The guy in the WSJ recommnded it the other day, but it's $30/year and SpyBot is free. Is it worth the bucks?
    Meh..

    SpyBot / AdAware. Both work, both pull certain items the other doesn't. I have noticed AA gets updated more often, but you can't beat the price.

    "Angry IP Scanner" is a very cool tool. Especially if someone in your neighborhood has an unprotected wireless hub...

    Free software is good. Free Internet Access is better.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by iceman
    Well, I had ad-aware, spybot and norton plus the built-in (but lame) firewall, I guess that kept things under control.

    Does anybody know SpySweeper? The guy in the WSJ recommnded it the other day, but it's $30/year and SpyBot is free. Is it worth the bucks?
    Spybot gets more raves than Spysweeper at cnet.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geoff
    Okay, what's a better firewall, the free zonealarm - or the windows one that installed itself when I got windows xp service pack 2.
    Anything Windoz sucks. Zone Alarm is by far the best Firewall. Spybot is prolly the best cleaner for Spyware. Cleaning your Registry will also speed up your machine. reg cleaner another one
    yepper

  11. #11
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    Okay, what's a better firewall, the free zonealarm - or the windows one that installed itself when I got windows xp service pack 2.

  12. #12
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    iceman wrote... and holy shit there are a lot of people trying to access my computer!

    Hi iceman,

    If you are still monitoring this thread you may want to look at who is trying to access your PC. It may be an Antivirus update.

  13. #13
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    the default windows firewall is an incoming traffic only firewall. so if a trojan or some spyware or something like that is on your computer it can contact the mothership all it wants without you knowing it. ZoneAlarm is two way and will notify you of unknown outgoing traffic.

    Most of my experience with hackers and what they do came from examining the access logs of a webserver that had a root kit installed on it. it had no sensitive data, so i dont know if they are out looking for cc info. The server was a kind of forgotten about webserver for the company i work for, so it was up for 4 months after it got hacked.

    It seemed like chinese hackers got into the machine and put the root kit in. they then started an open proxy. Most of the chinese using the open proxy were using it to access fairly inoccuous websites (us immigration, news sites, encyclopedia sites) that must have been blocked in china.

    Then somehow Germans started getting hold of the open proxy. They were bouncing lots of porn traffic off the server. Those germans are some filthy, filthy people. They were looking at sites that would have made Punani blush.

    Finally the American spammers got ahold of it. when the isp noticed the extent of the traffic, the server was starting to bring the whole isp down because 15k email messages per minute were bouncing off the server. Thats when we pulled the server. It was fun to poke through the access logs thought and see the amount of traffic that had been passing through the machine.
    "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    Ben Franklin

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