Subject: I am computer illiterate ((((help))))))

From: "Kent L. McKinstry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 22:03:30 -0800

Can you help me, I have been hacked  15 times in 2 months by a bunch of
hackers, they use a black server box, and crash my hard drive, I have a
notebook, its a 400MHZ, 6 Gig HD 1200 series Pro Star Note book, so
thats all I know can you help? [email-masked]
Thank You K.L. Mckinstry

---

From: Michel Bardiaux <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 15:18:02 +0100

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"Kent L. McKinstry" wrote:
> 
> Can you help me, I have been hacked  15 times in 2 months by a bunch
> of hackers, they use a black server box, and crash my hard drive, I
> have a notebook, its a 400MHZ, 6 Gig HD 1200 series Pro Star Note
> book, so thats all I know can you help? [email-masked]
> Thank You K.L. Mckinstry

If you have only the one machine and it is running some version of
Windows,
the FWTK list is certainly not the place where to look.

If you have only the one machine and it is running Linux, the FWTK would
be
no help to you; use ipfwadm, ipchains, or netfilter, depending on your
kernel.
See http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html

If you have only the one machine and it is running some other 'nix,
again
FWTK would be no help to you. I can only recommend reading a good book
on
UNIX security (well, that is recommended in the other cases too!)

If you can find some old Pentium-90 or even 486-50, with a few hundred
Meg HD
and a NIC, then you can install Linux on it, then install the FWTK. FWTK
plus ipfwadm would give you even stronger security.

To summarize, the 1st question is: what OS do you use? The 2nd is: how
much
effort are you willing to exert in order to stop being illiterate?
Because,
nowadays, whether one uses Windows or Linux, securing one's PC requires
a not inconsiderable amount of technical savvy. Even end-user-oriented
distros of Linux like Mandrake or Caldera or Corel, set up a system with
very poor security.

-- 
Michel Bardiaux