Thanks, Mike. As I use my laptop both at home and at the office I don't have a lot of choice as to which machine I keep my data on. However, I DO have a choice as to whether to back it up, and your last point was a good wakeup call to me to plug in my Zip drive and use it...often.

Here's another related question, that Steve's article brought up. Now that I've moved from my off-the-grid house with a cell phone to an apartment with a real telephone line, I've been thinking about getting DSL service. How much does that increase my vulnerability to a random "attack" by a virus, hacker, etc.? And what's the best way to protect myself? From what I've seen of Steve Gibson's work, I would imagine that something like his "ShieldsUp!" program would be necessary...are there any other precautions I should take?

As my college roommate used to say, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not really after you!"

Aloha,
Mark