Net passport

to night when I brought up the net passport log in page to sign on to this
forum. in the pane that requires my e-mail address there was the address of
someone else already in the address pane does anyone know the implications of
this if any also the question that I wanted to ask is whenever I am connected
to the internet x bytes are recieved and x Bytes are sent is there any way of
checking the information that my pc is sending out to the web'
--
Jack Allen

In ,
Jack had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

to night when I brought up the net passport log in page to sign on to
this forum. in the pane that requires my e-mail address there was
the address of someone else already in the address pane does anyone
know the implications of this if any also the question that I wanted
to ask is whenever I am connected to the internet x bytes are
recieved and x Bytes are sent is there any way of checking the
information that my pc is sending out to the web'


To touch lightly on both of those issues will take a moment so I'll try to
be brief. The reason that there was another name in there was that someone
had used the computer with an alternative email address and logged on to one
of the many Passport enabled sites. Did someone use your PC that you know
about to check their email or something? If so then they didn't tick the box
asking that the PC not remember them or just didn't click the option to log
out after they'd completed their session. Those are, as far as I know, the
only ways that there would be alternative information in the box.

As for your next question, well, yes you can. You could get one of the
various packet reading applications and read through them all and generally
have a lot of fun wasting time like that. You can actually see the content
of the packets being sent to and from your computer and, in some cases, you
can see it in plain text format which is a lot of fun but probably not going
to do you nearly as much good as you're hoping. Instead the *best* method
that I can think of is to download, configure, and then keep tabs on a third
party firewall. While the firewall for XP SP2 is, believe it or not, not as
bad as people claim there are easier firewalls to configure. I am a bit
biased but have no financial interests in my recommendation of Outpost
Firewall. You can download either a trial or the older freeware version of
the product from www.agnitum.com or, if you want the only other alternative
that I have for this class of protection, then you can take a look at
Kaspersky's Anti-Hacker at www.kaspesky.com if you'd like. Both products
have rules that will apply to *most* types of applications.

To go on and off the subject of the actual question, it has been my
experience that configuring a firewall is a personal thing and takes quite a
while. Security really is a measurement of knowing what the risks are and
then deciding what you are willing to risk to accomplish your goals online.
(Security goes far beyond being online for instance - what if, if you will,
you can't recollect someone who's used your PC at all? Then the implications
there are that someone has entered your home and used your PC while you
weren't there and who knows what sort of data they've managed to collect. If
they'd logged on to an email account then, well, what exactly where they
doing? Checking their mail? Emailing themselves your personal information?)
The *best* method that I have found to configure your firewall would be to
put it into it's rule's mode where you get to be prompted to make certain
rules and to decide what can access the internet, when it can access it,
what ports it can use, what direction the access is allowed, etc... After a
while the prompts will slow down and you'll have found that you've
configured the firewall to suit your personal needs. At that point you can
generally place it into a "block most" type mode where it won't prompt you
and will happily continue blocking anything you'd not already given
permission to. This process can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a
month and in some cases even longer. There will, of course, come a time when
you've installed something new and it won't function as you'd expected it
to. The reason for this would be that the firewall had been set to block it
as it wasn't already given a rule set. So, when you find something that
doesn't work as expected online the first step is to put the firewall back
into it's rules mode and from there try the application's functions again.
At that point you spend a few moments configuring it and when you're certain
that it's doing what you want it to do (and only what you want it to do) you
go ahead and put it back into the block most type configuration.

That being said, when this has been configured (note that I didn't say
completed as such a process is never going to end - it's only going to get
speedier and easier as you learn more and configure it better) there's no
need to see the packets being sent to and from your PC because, while you
may not know their actual content, you will know that the applications have
only access that you've granted. The effort to wade through the packets from
just a single hour long session online would be overwhelming to any human
and, to be honest, wouldn't do most people much good.

Anyhow, sorry for the long-winded response. I do hope that I've answered
your questions and given you a bit more insight.

Galen
--

"You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his
trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will
come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all."

Sherlock Holmes

Possible third-party solution:

System Security Suite (3S) is a program designed to remove internet tracks
and junk files from your computer. It allows you to delete Cookies,
clear Internet Explorer Cache, delete index.dat Files, clear Typed URLs,
Windows Temp Folder and much more.
http://www.igorshpak.net/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Jack" wrote:

| to night when I brought up the net passport log in page to sign on to this
| forum. in the pane that requires my e-mail address there was the address of
| someone else already in the address pane does anyone know the implications of
| this if any also the question that I wanted to ask is whenever I am connected
| to the internet x bytes are recieved and x Bytes are sent is there any way of
| checking the information that my pc is sending out to the web'
| --
| Jack Allen