Naked on the internet, or, where I’ve been the last few weeks.

How paranoid careful are you about your internet security?

I hadn’t used my laptop for a while because I mostly use it on the train and for one reason or another I hadn’t been taking it along. I finally cranked it open a few weeks ago at home and it wouldn’t connect to our home network. Or rather, it said it was connected, but there was no internet access. (Oh, and no access to anything else either, so not sure what that ‘connected’ status was about.)

I asked Dave what the password was but I had it right already. I grumbled about this for a few days (I only remembered I had the problem when I was trying to use it, and I only tried to use it when Dave wasn’t around) then I had a bright idea. I’d use my mini wi-fi thingy I had for the train! I’m a genius! Except that didn’t work either. So the problem was with my computer, not the network. I faffed about with all the firewall settings I could find and when nothing worked took the laptop to Dave like a Labrador with its favorite deflated ball.

“It’s the firewall,” he said in his best Aww, it’s so cute how you’re not technical way, and tried all the same things I did. When that didn’t work he decided the wireless card was dead. This made me sad. But! Then I thought of actually plugging it into the network port in the study, you know the one we made our poor friend Phil crawl all the way under the house to install. So I did. And you know what?

Nothing.

At this point I was so frustrated I uninstalled my McAfee virusthingy. I figured it couldn’t get much worse. And the internet worked! An automatic update must have put it into lockdown mode, though I still don’t know what the heck it was that changed. So now it’s working but I feel all nervous like I’m sitting here with my arse hanging out in public because I’m all bare and unprotected. In the olden days I would have been fine leaving it like this because hey, I don’t visit porn sites and I don’t open email attachments but now, who knows what shenanigans my browser’s doing in the background? Maybe those guys who keep calling from India to try to convince me they work for my ISP and need my password have got on already. Maybe they’re watching me right now.

Dave’s going to install Microsoft’s free security thingy tonight, but I’m still left with questions. Like, what the heck got changed? And, is the built in webcam on my laptop showing off my butt to its best advantage? Do I just abandon my expensive McAfee subscription? I feel more protected with it but it’s probably all for show. Is this proof that I am now a complete PC luddite and need to do some learnin’? Or should I cave in and buy a mac? (PS. I’m not going to buy a mac.)