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Not only are their all manner of deviants trying to lure little girls into clandestine meetings for the purposes of underage sex, but there's also the very real risk that if you're not careful about what you buy online, you may end up with certain parts of your anatomy enlarged to grotesque proportions.

Okay, so I'm overstating those two particular dangers -- although it's still a stupid parent who doesn't give their kids a good lesson in cyber-street-smarts before allowing them onto the net.

But there are also the very real and omnipresent risks associated with hooking your PC up to the internet.

Viruses, hackers, worms, trojans -- we know all about these dangers don't we?

What's more, the smart people make sure they patch their OS and applications to the latest release as soon as such updates become available, and they also run some kind of firewall.

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But what do you do when that firewall becomes the vector through which an evil malevolent worm enters your system and trashes the data on your hard-drive?

Well that's exactly what appears to have happened over the weekend to some unfortunate people.

According to this story (Washington Post), a new worm with the name "Witty" is wreaking havoc by exploiting a vulnerability in the BlackIce firewall product.

Well, what can you rely on if you can't trust your firewall?

To be honest, although running a software-based firewall is a very good idea and something I recommend to every computer user who wants to go online, it's still a pretty weak solution to a very significant problem.

Zone Alarm, BlackIce and all those other software-based firewalls still have to exist within the limitations of the Windows operating system and because of this, they'll always be a second-rate solution.

Fortunately, the increasing popularity of DSL connections offers another, more robust line of defence against hackers and worms. I refer of course to the combination DSL modem and router with NAT (Network Address Translation).

This combination provides a far more robust ability to block the efforts of evil sods or their software spawn and, when I'm asked, I always suggest to those considering the move to DSL, that they invest in such a box rather than the cheapest DSL modem card they can find.

But, apart from switching to Linux, what can we do to increase the resistance of our net-connected PCs to external attacks?

I'd like to know what Aardvark readers have implemented as reasonable defences against hackers, worms and the like.

I'd also like to know why computer stores aren't selling cheap hardware-based firewall units that even dial-up web-surfers can use to protect themselves.

Given that most households have probably upgraded to a new PC sometime in the last few years, I wonder if there's a market for configuring those old PCs as Linux-based firewalls designed to protect the "new" PC?

Or is this simply a huge over-reaction to a problem that, in reality, affects just a tiny percentage of all Net users?

Idiot of the Year
Now we all know that it's very naughty to burn CDs but this guy has to take the award for idiot of the year.

And if you want to know exactly why personal music piracy isn't hurting the music industry, check out my column in tomorrow's Christchurch Press.

New Forums!
Yes folks, good news. The grotty ezboard forums have been replaced with a new phpBBS-based system that won't assault you with a myriad of pop-ups and other flotsam.

A big thanks to Managed Internet Solutions for offering to provide this service.

You can access the new forums over at aardvarkforums.co.nz

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