computer hacking

I was not aware that there were so many people out there trying to hack into my computer. got some advice from carlos to upgrade my firewall, and now everytime someone tries to hack into my system I get a message flag. I get about 4-5 hits everytime I go online. It's not that I have anything of value stored in there, it's just I feel violated.
the same thing must be happening to everyone, scary shit

What firewall do you have?
I have zonealarm- its really good and i get more than 4-5 hits a night i think i have to download some spy ware removal- i think when you download programs you end up getting a lot of shit installed and spamming spy wares that track and keep a record of all the sites you frequently visit.
So i think its more likely that it could be a result of the spies

Yeah, I dont think there are that many spotty teens around... Its just software doing its thing. : )

Fuck I sound like a bastard.

No you don't Smiley - i take it that you are mashed
REsponse time in this section is very sluggish .... so just blame it on that.

Heh, not mashed, slightly stoned....

I have also got zone alarm which definately seems to do the job.

How do you get one of these things?

www.zonealarm.com
OR go to cnet downloads and look up firewall software under downloads.

It's most unlikely that it's hacking activity, hedonist. ZoneAlarm just tells you whenver a packet comes your way - it's very unlikely to be malicious.

It's most likely just to be a wrongly addressed packet floating the web. It happens all the time and it's nothing to worry about.

The media and security companies (and unenlightened yusers/scaremongers) inflate the /real/ threat of people hacking your PC, especially if you're on a dial-up. That being said, if you can afford the extra RAM, and slower PC that results from running ZoneAlarm, go for it - can't hurt more than that.

People seem to think that it's easy to hack their computer. It's not. Install a decent virus scanner to stop backdoor server trojans, don't run misc. programs that you don't know the origins of, and update the security vulnerabiltiies in your software (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, mIRC, ICQ in particular) and don't run a server, and you're probably fine.

http://www.windowsupdate.com/
http://www.zonealarm.com/ (for biker 13)

ZoneAlarm /IS/ a really good piece of software though. I recommend it if you want that piece of mind.

programes like kazza have spy files in them, if u remove these files, u cant use the programe, but to see what files are spy files u can download this programe called "Ad-aware" u can find it at www.alldownloads.com

i was shocked at how many spy files i had on my comp, over 200 the 1st time i used the programe

Yeah, but KaZaA asks you in the install process if you want to install the extra 'features' which all contain spyware. If you click "no", the only spyware you get is Cydoor, which you can use a patch to remove. If anyone wants the patch for the latest release of KaZaA, let me know. You need Ad-Aware as well.

The issue of spyware and hacking are quite different in many ways, although the one similarity they have is the breach of privacy.

I just went thru some real problems with spyware and pop ups thanks to Audiogalaxy (Gator, vx2, webhancer etc).
One site I found really helpful was

http://www.lurkhere.com/index.html

This is where I downloaded Ad-Aware from and use their forum to get advise.

And phucking Bonzai buddy... I want to start a Kill Bonzai Buddy foundation!

Nice thanks for that helpful information

Bonzi buddy is the source of all evil!

yeah, ad-Aware is made my Lava-soft I think. Not sure about the lurk here site, maybe it has a click through. Just do a google search - ad-Aware is good software, but as mentioned above, if you remove the spyware from products like KaZaA without patching them the product stops working. Bastards.

thanks for your help guys