Your home computer may be committing a crime at this very moment. It might be sending out spam. It might be buying stock as part of a pump-and-dump scheme. Or it might be helping attack the Internet itself, silently and invisibly, as you read this story. And the odds your computer is a criminal are quickly rising.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/03/bots_story.html#posts

Very interesting article John. Thanks for sharing it.

Nothing much we can do uh ? A major problem is that most users simply don't care. Once infected, they continue sending mails, downloading and uploading music and videos from unauthorized sources and browsing porn sites until their system stops running or become too slow. Then, they reformat/reinstall a pirate copy of Windows and start over again. I know a lot of them in my neighborhood.

Chris

Good reason for running a program like DU Meter so you can quickly see if the system is sending out data while it's idle. Of course, if you're running one or more IM programs, you'll see nearly constant traffic anyway.

Great read Interceptor, thanks for this post. Who likes bailing water that fills faster than the teaspoon can scoop it out. Not me. Andf I sure hope I don't catch one either. Will look into Jim's link. Just D/L it Jim, thanks I took the 30 day free trial. At $19.95 isn't much if it helps me protect my PC which is so dear to me.

Errrrrrrr Jim, does the free 30 day trial offer any of the fuctions I read about. I can't find any place to click on this meter to reset or put grid lines or view reports. Do you know why or have I missed something?

I found what I missed. Just right click on the meter.

MYDUMeter is a free program which claims to mimic DUMeter. It requires some flavor of .NET to work (www.codeproject.com/csharp/mydumeter.asp).

I use the ZoneAlarm (ZA) firewall, and the ZA icon in the tray shows when traffic is going in and out. It isn't quantitative, which the above two programs are, but it still shows when traffic is going in or out for no good reason.

I use to swear by Zone Alarm. But like Norton they grew to big to really offer tech support. And a firewall/Antivirus situation isn't where one cares to wait a week before some guy with a manual says hello now what is the problem! So like Norton I dropped them. I used both the free and paid version on besktop and laptop.
I now have Trend Mirco (came with the machines, new desktop and laptop) And they are the same growing to fast to keep up. Plus the update process gets in my way. So soon I will google AV/Firewalls and see who is the best this year and pick another.
good Luck with ZA.