It was a dark and stormy night when PAT wrote:
> Should I turn the system completely off when I am asleep/not home?
Assuming you're doing (Windows, antivirus, spyware) updates regularly,
you're doing all the right things. (If you're not running one, you
might think about a software firewall like ZoneAlarm or Kerio to serve
as a second line of defense. If you did become compromised that would
likely block the outbound spam.) It's the people who don't do that
stuff that become zombies. I've got servers on my LAN that run 24/7
for years, and have never had any problems.
I've never seen a piece of spam that actually traced back to you (as
opposed to just claiming that it was from you on the "From" line,
which as has been noted is easy to forge).
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do have Zone Alarm on all my machines
as well, and I managed to finally convert my Toshiba Satellite CDS-220
which was running Win 95 as OEM over to Win 98 by just zapping the
entire hard drive, then loading a fresh Win 98 then going around the
net obtaining all the Toshiba Satellite CDS 220-specific drivers I
needed and could remember. Don't ask me how I did it with only 32 K of
ram and a speed of only 122 meg. I don't honestly know; I just kept
plugging away at it. It, and one of the old Think Pad Win 95 machines
(also converted to Win 98) share a hub now via my old Linksys router
feeding into my newer Net Gear router. When Toshiba was running Win 95
that was the one machine that Zone Alarm would not work on until I got
Win 98 on it also. For me, it was really a lot of trial and error. But
if anyone ever traces back an actual spam that my computers ever sent
out, I would surely appreiate knowing about it. PAT]
Dave Garland (dave.garland@wizinfo.com)