Please, please, folks: be careful how you set up you shared folders!

I just did a search for cookies.txt and was astonished with how many results came back. This is the file Netscape uses to store cookies, but IE cookies are also out there in droves for anyone to grab.

I can't even begin to express how EXTEREMELY DANGEROUS this is! Those cookies contain any automatic login information you have for your webmail, online stores, or any other website you use. It would be trivial for someone to insert them into their own browser and impersonate you. Please check your settings and make sure you're sharing only the folders you want to make public.

Really, it would be nice if Gnutella clients prevented users from sharing entire drives and especially the windows folder. At the very least they should give you a very big warning first.

No!! We're just gonna fork our prime drive over to Saddam Hussein!!
If you share your entire hard drive, I think we have a <b>misunderstanding</b>
By the way, SRL, thanx for informing some of these people that sharing their entire disk is BAD!!!! They would of never of thought that!

Kirby

[IMG]http://**************.com/ms/kirbykore/images/kirbywave.gif[/IMG]

May seem obvious to you, but a huge number of people seem to be doing just that.

Many ex-napser users may not realize it's not just their MP3's they're making available.

kirby wrote:
--
No!! We're just gonna fork our prime drive over to Saddam Hussein!!
If you share your entire hard drive, I think we have a misunderstanding
By the way, SRL, thanx for informing some of these people that sharing their entire disk is BAD!!!! They would of never of thought that!
---

Do a search for word documents, .doc and .txt files on your gnutella client and you would understand what he means. Everything from personal CV's to confidential business doc's are available for download.

OK, thanks for the warning. I'm not a very experienced user; what do I do, to make sure I'm not sharing something I don't want to?

It depends on which program you're using (LimeWire, Gnotella, BearShear, Gnucleus, etc.), but in general you need to go into its settings and find where it lists the folders you're sharing. It's best to create a special folder on your HD only for sharing files and make sure this is the only one listed. You might also have one additional folder for incomplete files, but this usually should not be shared. In particular make sure you're not sharing something like one of these...

c:\ (or any other single letter)
c:\windows
c:\program files

etc.