Yes you do speak words of wisdom bonestructure, and if you look at my post in Renderotica (news) you will see my small familiarity with this area is very recent, limited and triggered by a bad experienece that I would not wish on anyone. However, despite its major shortcomings, I believe that my limited knowledge is probably greater than the vast majority of ordinary surfers on the net and that is scary because it shows up the vulnerability of people to the preditors be they Aureate, or Hackers or (and thank you for explaining it) Crackers. Your security precautions are something that many people could learn from. But just like many car drivers have no idea what goes on under the bonnet, many computer users will never learn about the dangers of the waters they surf in. And in those circumstances programs like ZoneAlarm might protect them and their often valuable and irreplacable data in some cases. If the computer, that we all increasingly rely on, were a house, it would have guard dogs, alarms, security glass and more if the neighbourhood posed equivilent threats to the ones that exist in cyberspace. And yes I agree with you the big boys like Microsoft and Intel may yet be proven to be the Al Capones of this whole saga. These days before I go to bed (which will be soon as it is 3.30 AM here) I unplug my 'puter from the mains and disconect the cable from the net. This despite boot passwords etc.etc. Mad is it not. 'night bonestructure, 3DSprite.... STORM