Hello Dino and all interested parties:

I agree. We should all be practicing safe computing. Good protection is made
up of 4 elements: .  FIREWALL, VIRUS PROTECTION. SPY WARE KILLER and backup
your document file.  You may have to perches the anti virus software.

Please don't let the information below scare you off. The programs you need
can be downloaded from the internet for free. Do a little at a time. Put up
a firewall and work on the rest in the following weeks.

We are working with computers here and it would benefit us all to pick up on
the computer jargon. I use Kim Komando's web site for the information below.
www.komando.com

There is a web site for the non technical approach. However the owner is
into self promotion of his e books on computer tricks and tips. The web site
is http://www.newbieclub.com/  and you can find tutorials here and sign up
for his weekly newsletter.





      1 Put Up A Barrier To Intruders With A Firewall


      A firewall should be installed along with anti-virus software.


      Firewalls can be either hardware or software. If you have a home
network and a router, the router probably includes a firewall. Be sure you
have enabled it. Check the instructions. Router firewalls are very capable.

      However, relatively few home users have routers. So they need software
firewalls. Some anti-virus packages include firewalls. There are also
numerous stand-alone firewalls made. At least two--ZoneAlarm
(http://www.zonelabs.com) and Outpost (http://www.agnitum.com) are free. I
use and recommend ZoneAlarm.

      Home firewalls hide your computer from snoops. The computer has a
number of communication points, called ports. These are used to send data to
the Internet from the computer. Intruders use sniffing programs to find
computers with open ports. The ports can be used by backdoor programs to
send information--for instance, your credit card numbers-- to a computer on
the Internet. Firewalls make these ports invisible.

      Firewalls also block unauthorized transmissions from your computer to
the Internet. So even if someone succeeds in planting a Trojan horse on your
computer, a firewall will keep it from sending information to the Internet.
The firewall will tell you a program is transmitting. You will have the
choice of permitting the transmission, or blocking it.

      Windows XP has a firewall built in. It is not enabled by default. So,
unless you enabled it, it is not running. XP's firewall does a good job of
hiding computers. But it does not block outbound transmissions. So I do not
recommend it. However, it is better than nothing.

      A firewall is crucial to your computer's security. Install one today.
Once it is configured, you'll hardly know it is there. But it could save you
a lot of grief


2 and 3     Anti virus software and spy ware.

 Problems in exterminating a virus

Q. I believe I have a virus on my computer. I scanned it with my
anti-virus software, which did not find anything. What else can I do?

A. Be sure that your anti-virus program is up-to-date. This is very
important; new viruses show up constantly. You can download updates
from the manufacturer's Web site.

You can also use online scanning programs. These two are free:
Panda-- http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/
HouseCall-- http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

If you still come up clean, you probably are not infected. All major
brands of anti-virus software are updated regularly. It is very
unlikely that you have a virus that is unknown to these companies.

Sometimes, poorly developed spyware programs can make computers flaky.
Spyware is often included with downloads of free programs from the
Internet. These programs track your Web browsing habits and report them
back to a computer on the Internet. That information is used to tailor
ads for you.

It is easy to track down spyware. You can find and delete it with
Ad-aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com) or Spybot Search and Destroy
(http://www.safer-networking.org/). Both programs are free. They also
must be updated regularly.

Occasionally, a new program can make a system unstable. This is not
likely, but if nothing else works, try uninstalling any recent hardware
and software

4  Back up your document files and keep them in a safe place.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Dino Cardamone" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 9:32 PM
Subject: PC minimal security


> Hi all.
>
> I am finally getting scared and motivated enough to do some preventative
> security on my system.
>
> Is there anywhere I can go to get a really clear, dummie language,
> adequately functional, description of where to get inexpensive software
for
> Virus Protection, Firewalls and Spy software?
>
> I'm looking to get the most protection, with the least amount of technical
> side effects, and also the least amount of cost, and difficulty in
> installation and maintenance.
>
> Thank you very much.
> Dino Cardamone
> Pittsburgh, PA USA
>
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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>


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html