Introduction: Here's a few of the Questions and Answers that people often hear but don't often know what they mean.

(and no, the Answer isn't 42) :)

A: If you don't know.. don't run a server ;-)

Also known as, Mail Abuse & Prevention System’s Real-time Blackhole List;

The Mail Abuse & Prevention System (MAPS) helps fight spam on the Internet. MAPS has a huge database of ISPs that do not enforce spam policies. Many ISPs on the Internet subscribe to MAPS. An ISP that is put on the Real-time Blackhole List (RBL) will not be able to send mail to any ISP that subscribes to the RBL list. This means that if PLUSNET were put on the list, their customers would not be able to send mail to any ISPs that subscribe to MAPS.

Other spam prevention groups that work in a similer way as MAPS are ORBS, IMRSS, RRSS

Usenet Death Penalty (UDP);

The UDP is the equivalent of an RBL for Usenet. If PLUSNET were given the UDP, then posts from their IP addresses will not be accepted to most news servers.

A: Denial of Service (DoS) is an attack designed to render a computer or network incapable of providing normal services. The most common DoS attacks will target the computer's network bandwidth or connectivity. Bandwidth attacks flood the network with such a high volume of traffic, that all available network resources are consumed and legitimate user requests can not get through.

Connectivity attacks flood a computer with such a high volume of connection requests, that all available operating system resources are consumed, and the computer can no longer process legitimate user requests.

A: If you have a firewall, the number of random port probes or scans you may find in your logs should not alarm you. Typically, the average Internet surfer is not a specified target in regard to getting port scanned.

Because our customers are known to be on a high-speed connection, it is inviting to people who may be looking for a computer to exploit. For instance, a spammer may be looking for a ADSL modem that is attached to an insecure computer that has an open mail relay available.

A: Spyware is a generic slang term to describe software that you install (usually unknowingly) on your PC.

This software sends information about you, your PC, and your activities to a host server, which will usually collate the information, ready for someone to use it :-(

A lot of companies offering 'free' software or have some sort of 'banner' advert, use these 'features'as a way of generating revenue from their 'free' product.

A: Enable WEP Encryption (although not 100% secure but it's better than no encryption, which is usually a DEFAULT setting) 40/64 bit WEP key can be cracked in 10 minutes, whilst a 128 bit WEP key is over
45 minutes.

Secure your wireless router / Access Point (AP), which should require a password to access its Admin features and change your password from the DEFAULT password and use a strong one!

A: IP addresses are analogous to telephone numbers when you want to call someone on the telephone, you must first know their telephone number. Similarly, when a computer on the Internet needs to send data to another computer, it must first know its IP address. IP addresses are typically shown as four numbers separated by decimal points, or dots. For example, 10.24.254.3 and 192.168.62.231 are IP addresses.

If you need to make a telephone call but you only know the person’s name, you can look them up in the telephone directory (or call directory services) to get their telephone number. On the Internet, that directory is called the Domain Name System, or DNS for short. If you know the name of a server, say www.google.co.uk, and you type this into your web browser, your computer will then go ask its DNS server what the numeric IP address is that is associated with that name