Quote Originally Posted by handrawn View Post
Nor would I.

Its not paranoia - its a real problem

Would you walk across the road with your eyes closed and feel safe because you couldn't hear anything coming? Even once?
It IS paranoia. I wouldn't go and walk thru the bad part of town where the drug dealers are and walk down a dark alley at midnight, that's a reasonable precaution.

But being paranoid to go out of your house at all is a pathetic phobia.
Are you scared to go out because you MIGHT get mugged?


Computer wise, it's just plain silly to be scared to turn off your firewall for a few minutes. Of course there are scanners looking around, but there are also millions of other computers on the internet.

I use a hardware router with firewall and virus checker 99% of the time but in a situation like the original poster described, of course I would temporarily turn off the firewall fro a few minutes. I've been using computers since the XT (early 1980's) and been on bbs's and later the internet since around 1990.

I have only ever had one virus and no attacks. BTW-the one virus was from a floppy disk from work!

Oh ya-raging paranoia: welcome to the internet!