Ned, Windows and other MS programs do indeed phone home frequently. A firewall is a great way to stop them. Most of their communication is harmless though. Windows XP does like to phone home and tell it's bosses what you've been doing though. :) Again, XP is a great OS, and this problem is easily avoided with a decent firewall. For the best protection, run an application based firewall to allow you to monitor communications in and out, and then a more powerful firewall program if needed. In some instances, if you have sensitive business information, or a VPN, or some other reason that you really don't want intruders; it is easy to purchase a hardware firewall. This way you can specify what ports can be accessed by which protocols. Jonathan Finger RPT -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ned Swift Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 4:41 PM To: pianotech@ptg.org Subject: Re: OT: Windows Update keeps tabs on all system software When I got my cable modem, I was concerned about hackers. While I had an antivirus program, I read that hackers some times plant non viral programs that attack other PCs. And that the hackers especially like PCs with high speed access. So, I bought a firewall program. The firewall program allowed me to decide which programs get to access the internet automatically, and which do not. I was amazed at the number of time that the MS programs wanted to access the internet in a one hour period. They were very annoying and I finally denied them access to the Internet. Prior to having the firewall, I would not have known that they even accessed the internet. FWIW Ned Swift Lowell, MI _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
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