"Ever heard of a CAT 5 cable? Just unplug it." Sure, but like I said - you gotta move that multi-megabyte pile of warez around somehow... and you still have to get those warez somehow as well. Like I said - if you think you'll feel safer by simply unplugging your cable/phone-line or relying on your firewall to prevent the warez cops from finding your shiznit, then go for it. Meanwhile, perhaps y'all can explain to those of us who actually work IT for a living, folks who know that you can barely trust a firewall to keep the script kiddies out, let alone an OEM who wrote your OS and the networking stack you're using to dial out with... how you think you're suddenly invincible. Sure, you can use a Linux firewall - I do that now. I wrote my own custom ruleset for iptables in roughly 30 minutes. I use portsentry to lock down everything but the TCP/UDP ports that I determine, and to launch active tracking and retaliatory scripts against script kiddies who do more than just scan. However, what's to keep your OS from choking up and refusing to run unless it has a clear connection to a phone line? What's to prevent the latest and greatest "critical security patch" from containing code that seeks and deletes software that contains known warezed serial numbers? How are you going to prevent the OS itself from policing your hard drive? Thing is, you can't, unless you replace your OS with something more amenable to privacy concerns. You think you can outsmart the folks who wrote your operating system and the software you use - I'm here to whack you with the holy Clue-By-Four and reveal the fact that for the most part you cannot, and the few instances where you can are beginning to dry up. In order for you to circumvent things, you would have to go to great resource- and time-eating lengths to get around these protections, especially if the creators are serious about it (of which Microsoft is only half-way serious about... so long as they make 800% profit margins off of their OS sales, you've nothing to worry about. When that profit margin starts dropping dramatically, then the fireworks will commence.) Of course, you can always just isntall Windows 98 or an early un-patched 2000 or ME, and just use that, since none of those have DRM. But then, you'll only get a limited amount of use out of them, at least until you discover that even cracked and warezed, Poser 6 can't run on anything older than Windows XP Home, or OS 11.3 or whatever. Even Win2k is three years old this month... Even now, using warez has to be tougher than using legit software for the most part. Take 3D Studio Max for instance. I have seen a kid come in and ask to get his machine fixed, because his computer suddenly lost 3/4 of it's power "for some weird reason." It turned out that he had a cracked copy of 3DS Max on it. Now, for those who have legit copies, you know that 3DS requires a hardware dongle... so how did they crack it? The warez monkey who cracked it wrote a bit of code that launches before 3DS Max' main portion of the executable does, which interacts with the LTP1 and a few other subsystems in Windows, and through them it fools 3DS into thinking the dongle is there and that it is legit. Problem is, that little chunk of code doesn't shut off when 3DS Max does, so all the memory and CPU power that Max ate during execution is still being held, and your OS cannot release it becuase the little "dongle fooler" is still holding it as being active and needed. Open two .max files, and twice the resources get ate. Leave 3DS Max running for too long, and it eventually slows your computer to a crawl as the temp files pile up. I just told the kid to ditch his warez. He told me that he didn't want to, so I sent him on his way and had my students (esp. the one who referred him to our little impromptu repair service) refuse to repair the problem. So - for those of you who are cracking 3DS Max, now you know (partially) why you have to reboot after you run your little bit of 3DS warez, and why it will run like shit after a fashion. How do you fix it? Not my problem - you deal with it. That is the point I was getting at - you have to jump through bigger and bigger hoops to play with your warez. If I wanted 3DS Max and bought it, then as a legit user I wouldn't suffer any of this, and could use it all day long without having to reboot my machine. As for personal freedoms, it's a real simple decision: If you don't like Microsoft digging around your hard drives, then don't use Microsoft products. /P