In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write:
> Does a program exist that will tell me what my internet connection is
> doing? Evenwhile I am not doing anything on-line, sometimes my modem is
> sending and recieving "stuff". It is way to much activity to be my ISP
> pinging me. I am wondering if someone, a person, or a company is
> snooping around my hard drive.
>
> This has been happening the whole time I have been typing this message,
> btw... and I don't compose email very fast.
It's probably port probing for various ports which can be trojans and
suchlike. Depending on what software you're using this may or may not be
serious. In general, DOS is completely safe, Win 16-bit very safe, Win
32-bit incredibly unsafe (without a firewall) and the Unix family vary
with the competence or paranoia of the admin.
It's vaguely interesting to log such probes and, if you take umbrage,
(it can get very irritating if the intensity reached denial of service
levels, but that's not common) to try to shaft the prober by moaning at
their ISP's admin. My experience is 99% with DOS (YAN flavour of KA9Q)
and I do log probes, but such logging either needs to be built into the
TCP stack or you need to be multitasking.
Port probing is on the increase although how much you see depends to
some extent on your ISP's policy. I tend to think that it's down to me
to handle the security of my system, but no everybody sees it that way.
In general, the more "family friendly" the ISP, the more likely they are
to limit port access (both directions), filter spam and censor webspace
and newsgroups. You pays your money...
Alex.
--
____________________________ _______________________________
( Alex Venn ) ( Success has many fathers, )
(_) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (____) but failure is an orphan. (_)
To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message.
Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies.
More info can be found at;
http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
