The litany of technical advice below, such as "try to redirect spyware
sendings to the 127.0.0.1 port", is all well and good, but to my mind
the best defence against being taken advantage of is to a) yes, get
yourself a good virus and spyware program (having a Mac i know little
about this, but i am assured there ARE in fact some very effective
"killer aps" around, that are easy to install and do their job quietly
and well), b) NEVER open an attachment unless you are reasonably sure it
is safe to do so: the many "active script" varieties of attachment such
as .exe, are best left alone all the time, unless you have specifically
requested them from a source you trust, and c) simply use a bit of
common sense: delete everything that is clearly spam (defined as
unsolicited email sent with commercial, criminal or ideological intent -
jokes and stories from friends may be annoying occasionally, but they
don't qualify as "spam"!), and with anything you might accidententally
or deliberately read (and some of the spammers are getting REALLY clever
these daze!!), just remember: if it sounds too good to be true, 99.9% of
the time, it is (ie, it isn't true!), and use whatever common sense you
can muster.  I'm **not** saying that making "destructive raids inside
your registry entries" is paranoid and excessive - just that most of the
time such extreme measures are not really necessary, provided one just
applies what common sense may be available to them.

From the wet, wild wilderness of New Scotland,
Ross Mayhew.

Olivier Caro wrote:

Try to never suscribe to a Y**** related forum or list, avoid F*** things,
be careful with e-commerce web-hosters etc etc etc
Change your email adresses, modify your settings, use one or more
spyblockers, hide yourself behind a firewall, load and run a registry
cleaner, consult Pest Patrol website, make destructive raids inside your
registry entries, do not accept active scripting, be careful with ActiveX
components, try to obtain a generic antiviral program, build your own zip
sniffer in C, avoid Arca etc. words in your search engines, or change to a
MAC, or Linux, and read, read, read everything about hijacking, adwares,
worms, HKEY folders etc. etc. etc. Then, try to find a little piece of time
to your hobby.

Tips:
Launch some requests using PEST, SPAM, ADWARE, SPYWARE, HIJACK, ... Good
lunch. And, hmm, it seems that the G*****Bar is something which has two
sides: "faces", and an other one.
Well, if you cannot delete a spyware (if it is included in an executable
file that you have to keep), try to redirect its sendings to the 127.0.0.1
port (that's a black hole, wonderful isn't it ?).

All these actions will preserve you most of times.
And last but not least, when you run your favourite softwares, close your
connection.

Olivier Caro

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