Funny you should mention Zone Alarm.

When I started to be aware of internet security (born from watching reports of high-level intrusions of web sites on the box), I joined Fred Langa's mailing list having heard about him from a friend. I also discovered Steve Gibson's site at www.grc.com , where he does a scan on your computer to see what is 'visible' to the outside world and was unpleasantly surprised by how many 'ports' I had open.

I hadn't a clue at first about the implications of this, until one day I received the phone bill. (I use a dial up connection - soon to change to cable!!). Apparently I had had two separate phone calls placed to Guyana. These weren't just ordinary phone-calls, mind you; They were to, what the telephone company diplomatically referred to as 'Entertainment phone numbers'

The 'extra' bill was 700 Kroner - roughly £90 (don't know the $ value). The phone man said that there had been a lot of complaints about this kind of thing, and one of the things he advised me to do was to tighten up my internet security - just in case. He also scrapped the bill, but that's a different story.

So is this, really, and I'm sorry for the thread creep, but I, too, would advise the installation of Zone Alarm; Fred Langa and Steve Gibson recommended it and that's why I did it.

You can sit pleasantly back and listen to the 'chimes at midnight' as it's alert window informs you of who's 'pinging' you and where abouts he/she/it is doing it.

And it's true: I'm sure it's not just Yahoo that has that in the small print. I'm thinking of the 'MP3's on the website' idea myself soon and it's a thing we have to keep in mind when we sign up for anything like that.

B.