The age of the 'always on' connection has, I believe, significantly contributed to the increase in software piracy. Finding a back door into someone's system is almost always possible, as long as that system is powered up and connected to the 'net. It's a problem that won't go away any time soon. An extremely valid point and in light of the SubSeven Trojan variants something that should be seriously considered by people. Firewalls and AntiVirus are not the be all and end all of security protection and it's perhaps surprising how easy it is to spoof these things. For those who have AV/FW on their system protection is increased considerably. The existence of so many (still) infected systems with email viruses is a good indication of how many people are STILL not taking security seriously. One thing that I've found that can be useful to combat trojans and spyware is Pest Patrol (http://www.pestpatrol.com) It's more efficient than AdAware and recognises embedded trojans and a large variety of spyware that can be missed by AV and Firewall software. Trojans are fun toys that open your computer to hostile persons without launching warnings. Some of them operate by adopting a name (explorer.exe, netscape.exe etc etc) in the knowledge that firewall permissions for those are already setup. Others have different techniques, some are unsubtle and scan the system for open ports lighting up firewall alerts every few seconds. I've run the software on systems for people when asked and it's quite surprising how many people are infected with a variety of spyware and trojan infected files - and not warez related files either.