Okay Fodeja: I am in a fighting mood today, so let's have it out. And this is in the spirit of fun, so don't get an elephant hair up your ass about this.
You said, "Yeah, Amazing. I like to bitch about people who use silly alarmist metaphors ("war! defcon-1! line of fire!") to describe the occasional surge in Internet's background noise."
Yes, you are humor impaired, even after I explained it to you, you insist that it is ohhhh soooo ALARMIST!!!!!!!! Oh Mercy me, how dare I do such an EEEVVVIIILLL thing!
You said, "Your message contained no technically useful information at all, just lots of excitement which only serves to make the layman paranoid."
Duhhhhh. Yep. I am not giving anything technically useful about the specifics of my security system. I used vague terms like 'stuff.' Ant knothead can figure this out. Layman? I doubt that there are more than a handful of any real IT/PC/ISP Professionals here. I know of one, and he has always enjoyed my Alert noctice and agree with what I have been saying. While I spoent 25 years in electrical engineering, computers are not my fortay. I doubt anyone here is paranoid. I trust the maturity and competance of most foilks here.
You said, "Actually, I don't even see how a couple of packets that got filtered anyway can be considered a "security breach". Being in this business myself, I've had to put up with a few people who got all crazy because their personal firewall is reporting something they don't understand. "Shrieek! Someone's sending me UDP packets on port 52! I don't have an idea what that is, but it sounds dangerous as hell! Someone call the police!?"
I didn't go that far, and again you are just wanting to struct around, show off your expertise and bitch. But a couple of little hits is not what I am talking about. Let me say it again, FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY SEVEN HACKING ATTEMPTS, INCLUDING ATTEMPTS TO SEND EMAIL ON MY ACCOUNT NAME" are far more significant than the littyle pissy stuff that you are attempting to talk about. And I am not excited, but it was unusual since I set up my new system five months ago.
You said, "I'm all for Windows users installing stuff like ZoneAlarm, I just wish it would be completely silent about "hacking attempts" from the outside by default. I mean, what's the point? How should the user react if he's not an expert of the intricacies of TCP/IP? The danger of attacks from the outside is way, way overrated for the average user's PC. It's the crap that people get via e-mail that's the real pest (did I mention to scrap Outlook Express ASAP? That's more of a security boost than any firewall you can buy.)."
You are partly right, and that is why in five months, I have only made 3 or 4 notices about the security issues. But, I think the situation is more serious than you are leading people to believe.
When I allowed myself to become confident, I let my previous system lapse. And in a short matter of time, my system was seriously breached, files gone, bookmakrs gone, 80 viruses, and two that were Trojans. The final Trojan had a sub-routine that destroyed my operating system when I attempted to Quarantine it. I had to take two days to get my system cleaned up. I am just one guy out here in cyberland that this happened to. So, I have learned not to trust those who minimize the dangers. Been there, done that, no thanks.
You said, "What else should I call thread topics such as "Major Internet Security Breach"? I'm glad you added "my system" now." Yes, I saw how humor imparied you are, and so added this just for your benefit.
You sid, "So, Amazing, thanks for bringing this to our attention (I mean it), but there's no point in making this sound like the outbreak of cyberwar. People are already paranoid enough these days."
You are the only one who is making a big damn deal out of it. I think that if you read my initial post again, you will see that it was somewhat tongue-n-cheek. The main point was to let folks know about significantly increased 'HACKING and EMAIL SNATCHING activity, so that they can at least check their own systems, compare notes, and as some have done, privcately email me to cross check IP routing to see if the same hacker is going after us. If so, then it IS suggestive that we have a bad egg hanging around JWD, and need to exercise a little caution.
You said, "I mean, you can't even have a serious dandruff problem without someone calling the men in plastic gear and gas masks."
Now you see you are using metaphore, allegory to amphasize an issue, but obviuoiusly you are not being literal are you. So, why in the damn hell can you not cut me the same slack!!! All in fun good buddy. - Amazing
