I did the unthinkable: I upgraded to the newer, better, much more protective-in-a-sheath-type antivirus software.

I am now officially paranoid, and I have the Internet to thank. Every time my trusty laptop slows down and starts endlessly processing, I think, "Oh no! The hackers have broken in, and I'm sending thousands of spam emails about Viagra and farm girls doing unspeakable things"-even though my little node of the world sits behind a router, a firewall and all kinds of antivirus, antispam, anti-everything software.

More likely, having 20 or so windows open on my PC, trying to do too many things at once and neglecting to clean up my hard drive are causing the occasional Hard-disk-heimer's moment. And my antivirus software regularly reports zero incidents of a viral infection or computer hijackings.

I don't like dealing with mundane things like protecting myself from the Internet swarm, but I know it's necessary. That's why when my subscription to Norton's Antivirus software was up for renewal recently, I grudgingly clicked on the email link expecting to be five minutes and a credit card number away from feeling secure again. But then I did the unthinkable: I upgraded to the newer, better, much more protective-in-a-sheath-type antivirus software. Well, why not? The new software had all these check marks next to critical features while my old software had, like, two.

Funny thing: When I was downloading the new software, my Norton Firewall software reported a "high risk" program it identified as a "Trojan horse," which is defined as a very dangerous program disguised as a conventional program that will take over my hard drive, eat through my computer shell, murder me and my family in the night, launch nuclear missiles around the globe, and oh yeah—turn me into a spam slave.

What? Huh? Wait! Er... and this was the new antivirus software I was downloading? A download and setup process that should have taken 20 minutes then took hours, because how could I be sure I was on the Norton download site at all? It could have been one of those fraudulent sites that demands your social security number or credit card information or your account will expire...wait a minute...oh, NO!

It turns out that it was the Norton site. There was no Trojan horse. But you can't be too careful.

Of course, once I had the new antivirus software in place, I had to reconfigure stuff and reset my print hub, and one of my email programs decided it wouldn't play with the new digital traffic cop in town. Now I frequently get little pop-up windows that say "Medium risk: suchandsuch.exe is trying to access the Internet! Do you want to block, permit or live under a tarp in the woods?" And I say, "How much for the tarp?"

Steven Castle is a Senior Editor and the resident wit of Electronic House magazine. Email Steve at scastle@ehpub.com.

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