On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 13:00:32 -0500, "RCE" wrote:

So, has all this hacking and virus stuff been over emphasized to sell
protection software, or have I just been lucky for the last 15 years?

You've been lucky. My home computer has the standard array of
protection: anti-virus, hardware firewall, software firewall, and
anti-spyware. It's up 24x7 and constantly connected with never a
problem. Many attempts are logged however.

I have a small laptop which normally gets used on the boat and
consequently has little or no protection. Two years ago I took it on
a trip to upstate NY, dialed into a small town internet service used
by friends, and 15 minutes later had a worm or virus which took down
the whole computer. I had to totally rebuild the software from the
ground up.