twilight zone

[Greg Newell]

Susan,
    You do indeed need a firewall. The activity light is someone pinging your IP
address looking to see what info they can get about you from your wide open
computer. A product called Zonealarm is not only the best firewall available to
my knowledge it's also free. www.zonealarm.com should point you to a free
download which when installed will protect you just fine. Once this is installed
there is no need to shut off your modem anymore.

Greg

Susan Kline wrote:

> You know, my cable modem activity light gets frenetic a lot of the time,
> too, even when I have no software open which should be using it.
>
> Geeks all, is this normal? What's happening?
>
> I need a firewall! Any current information on which one I should try?
> And will a firewall keep some hacker from getting into personal data
> when I post to a message board? Someone did, recently. Very unsettling,
> for sure!
>
> I turn off the cable modem when I'm not actively using it.
>
>  From the very time I started reading pianotech, I've noticed that my
> posts are delayed getting back to me. Often someone has answered before
> my own posts arrive in the In Box.
>
> Certain people's posts tend to show up in duplicate, but not very many
> people or very often. Used to be more, I think.
>
> All these little electrons! Sneaky little critters, fast as lightning,
> will go anywhere, do anything, whether or not you want them to ...
>
> Susan
>
> At 09:04 PM 08/08/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> >Weirdness.
> >
> >All day today, I've been getting multiple repeat messages, replies to
> >messages that still haven't showed up in my In box, and the usual alien
> >stuff that doesn't seem to relate to anything at all. Meanwhile, my cable
> >modem access light has been flashing continually all week, and access speed
> >has slowed dramatically. My firewall has been in security breach heaven all
> >week too, reporting near infinite but hopefully ineffectual port probes of
> >my IP. Code Red II is apparently responsible for most of the bandwidth
> >clog, but I'm taking a poll to see if the pianotech haunting is at the
> >source server or at my end.
> >
> >Where's a good Internet worm backtracer and eradicator (with extreme
> >prejudice) when you need one?

--
Greg Newell
Greg's Piano Forté
12970 Harlon Ave.
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-226-3791
mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net