I was on the yahoo.com site and saw a video I thought I'd like to see. WHen I clicked on it I was told I needed to DL the Quicktime and Flash player.

Now, for a fact I have both on my computer. I constantly am seeing flash movies, as I move around on the web. I know I have flash installed. Heck, all you have to do is right click on a flash ad to see you have it installed, not counting the fact you can see the blinking ad.

I think the web guru twits must be getting paid for constantly ragging on us to upgrade something we've already got. In fact, I'm getting pretty nervous about the constant intervention by sites wanting to do something or other on my computer.

I've got a ZoneAlarm installed, and my gosh at the number of times this thing is picking up someone trying to get into my computer. Microsoft is even guilty of pulling this kinda junk.

Piracy probably has a lot to do with the contant junk we're being asked to upgrade. I think adobe, microsoft, etc, the big name guys are constantly picking our computers for information.

Anyway, is it just me or do others feel there is "getting to be too much of this kind of thing of late ".

I'm behind a router, zonealarm firewall, 3 spyware programs which I use regularly, and a virus scanner. I turn off my computer everytime I leave the house. Recently, I came home and my router and dsl modem were going wild with activitiy. Believe it or not. Somehow, someone had acquired a way to get in past WEP 64bit security.

Now, I'm looking for a good utility that will lock my harddrives, partitions, and other storage devices. I run 100 gig partitions on my drives to help with defragmentation and other maintenance.

I didn't know it until I put on the Zonealarm firewall, but there is so much going on a web connection. My DSL is a constant on situation, and someone or some bot is trying to get into my computer. When I load a different software it's not uncommon to get a popup on zonealarm that some program or other is trying to get out of my computer, or worse..act as a server.

HERE IS A LINK TO THE ZONEALARM FREE FIREWALL - ITS A GOOD ONE

I could use some recommendations for a lock software for my hard drives, partitions, folders and other storage devices, both software and hardware.

I thought I should add this.. I'd also like to find something to hide/lock my registry as well I think the darn ferret bots are all over the place extracting stuff, which we don't even have a clue about what it is or what it does.

We used to have this kind of problem. We switched to Trend Micro PC-cillin and I never see my modem flashing unless I make a request. No intrusion attempts.

It has also seemed to vary a lot depending on who my internet provider is. Some providers have a lot of trojan-type spy crap that loads on their default installation, so you have to be careful. When we lived in CA, I forget the ISP, but it was constant. Here, hardly any problems.

WEP encryption is flawed and there are quite a few free tools available for cracking it. If someone can collect enough packets (which is just a matter of time) the software can guess the key. So use WPA encryption if your hardware supports it as it is currently considered bulletproof - if (and only if) you use a very long random key to prevent dictionary attacks (the GRC random key generator is designed to deliver the ultimate in ugly passwords).

Suggest you take a look at the freeware program Truecrypt for creating strongly encrypted volumes or partitions or even flash drives. Very nice and actually comes with a good user manual. If you want a brief overview of what it does, there is a GRC podcast about it (see episode 41).

I also can't resist putting in a general-security-related-interest plug for the Hamachi VPN program (see episode 18) which is basically an amazingly user friendly program for creating your own encrypted virtual private networks (the basic version is free). It can cross NAT firewalls transparently, so I use it to remote desktop into my work computer while travelling or from home. No more slogging into the office on weekends! (Well, except for today )

As you can see, I'm a bit of a fan of GRC There's a few podcasts about wireless security if you troll through the list, also some about DDOS and other things of interest to webmasters.