Techie help (again) : comments [Scribblings from the Mitchy Side]

Hm. Yes, I think possibly you were right to be worried; that IP address looks as though it comes from a cable modem in Canada, i.e. not necessarily someone you'd expect to be running a POP3 server. Though it doesn't look like they actually managed to _do_ anything, just that they were attempting to connect to your machine on that port.

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Ah-hah! Thanks! Well good to know they didn't do anything. I've checked my Windows Firewall, which was (and is) enabled, and made sure only programs I know about are on the exceptions list. Is there anything else I could/should do to improve my security?

Thanks :)

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window's firewall isn't very good necessarily. zone alarm offers a very good free one:
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_zaav.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en&lid=dbtopnav_pro&ovchn=GGL&ovcpn=US_Branded&ovcrn=sr2zl4go1042go209pi5ai20+zonealarm+free&ovtac=PPC&SR=sr2zl4go1042go209pi5ai20

However, it didn't play well w/ my hardware firewall that is on my wireless internet modem so I had to abandon it (fortunately: hardware firewall = good). I also use a squared anti-malware which has a intrusion detection system with it.

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I've heard good things about Zone Alarm, 's true. However, that link doesn't mention anything about it being free, just that you can try it for 15 days before buying. Which I may well consider but I can't afford it right now. Hopefully, turning off the POP3 server option I mentioned in my reply to

bibliogirl down there *points* will solve the problem for now :)

What's a "squared anti-malware" program when it's at home? Anti-malware I get but...squared? :)

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Heh... no "a-squared" is the company name.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

It's basically an anti-virus, anti-malware program. It scans for problematic file traces as well as possibly malicious browser cookies and all.

I upped to the paid version when I got rid of asquared due to the firewall incompatibility. I forget the exact difference of the free versus paid versions, but the free one did flag several "key stroke grabbing" programs that had gotten inserted onto my computer back when I was using macafee.

I believe if you look around through the zone alarm multitude of google links you'll find a fully free firewall. that or you can keep a certain level of the firewall even after the expiration --- I have several friends that run the free version only as their firewalls.

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There's a free version, and a Pro version. I think the Pro gives you a few other bits and bobs, but the freebie does the whole firewall thing well.

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Is there any particular reason why you'd be running a POP3 _server_ locally, as opposed to a client? It might possibly be worth seeing if you can turn off that port (110) in your firewall. (If you stop getting mail then you may need to turn it back on again ;))

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*lightbulb appears over Mitchy's head*

*goes to beat up Turnpike*

AH-HAH!! There's an option on the email configuring to enable a POP3 server and it was ticked for some strange reason. So that's been turned off now :) Soon as you said that, I knew where to look. Thanks!

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Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

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January