UNWANTED POP-UP SCREENS

[Nancy]

>-----Original Message-----
>HOW CAN I ENTIRELY ELIMINATE POP-UP SCREENS/MESSAGES FROM
>TAKING OVER MY COMPUTER? I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS
>PROBLEM IS NOT SHARED BY VIRTUALLY ALL USERS OUT THERE.
>I AM USING XP SOFTWARE AND HAVE AN AOL ACCOUNT. IS THERE
>ANY WAY I CAN DO THIS WITHOUT SPENDING AN ARM AND A
>LEG?
>.
>Stopping unwanted pop-up screens
I got this a few days ago from this site. It works until I
had to turn off my computer and restart it for an
unrelated reason. Go to Control panel, set to classic
view, administrative tools, services, messenger--disable
the messenger

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Please stop posting potentially harmful advice. What are you, a
hacker-wannabe? Why else would you be deliberately posting bad
advice? Are you trying to give people a false sense of security by
having them turn off what are, in effect, valid security warnings,
while still leaving their PCs open to potential exploitation?

Disabling the messenger service is a "head in the sand" approach
to computer security.

The real problem is _not_ the messenger service pop-ups; they're
actually providing a useful service by acting as a security alert. The
true problem is the unsecured computer, and you're only
advice, however well-intended, was to turn off the warnings. How is
this helpful?

Equivalent Scenario 1: Somewhere in a house, a small fire starts,
and sets off the smoke alarm. The home-owner, not immediately seeing
any fire/smoke, complains about the noise of the smoke detector, so
you tell him to remove the smoke detector's battery and go back to
sleep, or whatever else he was doing.

Equivalent Scenario 2: You over-exert your shoulder at work or
play, causing bursitis. After weeks of annoying and sometimes
excruciating pain whenever you try to reach over your head, you go to
a doctor and say, while demonstrating the motion, "Doc, it hurts when
I do this." The doctor, being as helpful as you are, replies, "Well,
don't do that."

The only true way to secure the PC, short of permanently
disconnecting it from the Internet, is to *properly* configure the
firewall; just installing one and letting it's default settings handle
things is no good. Unfortunately, this does require one to learn a
little bit more about using a computer than used to be necessary.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH


"Nancy" > wrote in message
...
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >HOW CAN I ENTIRELY ELIMINATE POP-UP SCREENS/MESSAGES FROM
> >TAKING OVER MY COMPUTER? I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS
> >PROBLEM IS NOT SHARED BY VIRTUALLY ALL USERS OUT THERE.
> >I AM USING XP SOFTWARE AND HAVE AN AOL ACCOUNT. IS THERE
> >ANY WAY I CAN DO THIS WITHOUT SPENDING AN ARM AND A
> >LEG?
> >.
> >Stopping unwanted pop-up screens
> I got this a few days ago from this site. It works until I
> had to turn off my computer and restart it for an
> unrelated reason. Go to Control panel, set to classic
> view, administrative tools, services, messenger--disable
> the messenger