'It's some kind of dialing software, probably malicious' Re dialers - There's no other kind of dialer except malicious. Dialers used to be auto-installed on your system mainly through porn sites. Used to be. They're now becoming a LOT more common, turning up on games sites, music sites, etc. A friend of mine got it dumped on her through her daughter's surfing - and got a HUGE phone bill. It installs itself and re-routes your connection to one in Singapore or the North Pole, and as soon as it does, you start paying $10 a second or whatever. Basic rules to avoid getting $1000 phone bills are.... 1. Keep a firewall (zone alarm is good) on all the time. It will (mostly) ask you if the dialer can access the net. 2. Keep the modem volume high so you can hear any new dialing activity. 3. Do a search regularly in your Windows folder for DDialer.exe, dialer.exe, loader.exe or dctl.exe. I do it once a week specifying 'files modified in the last 7 days' 4. Frequently check the properties of your dial-up connections to make sure there are no new ones and that the numbers haven't been changed on the ones you use. Boy, the net is like a f**king jungle these days! mac