I don't mean to be argumentive here Morgwen but "whois" is an open source utility and as such anyone using the "whois" utility can access any server that is also runing, finger, gopher, whois etc..

Many organizations like "ARIN" have very large data bases which contain IP's for public use. Anyone can do a lookup and find an IP. IP's are a matter of public record -- It's just like doing a DNS lookup, DIG or NSlookup and there is nothing illegal in doing so. This is like catching someone driving down the highway and commiting a crime, taking a picture of their license plate and posting it -- "have you seen this car?". Nevertheless I did NOT have to use those tools to get my information. Packet sniffers do a much better job....

However I do agree with the phone numbers .. ok your right there I should not have posted those in the forum.

What I mean by personal property Morgwen is my computer, legally it's considered "Personal Property" because it can be moved, it's not fixed in location. And if you or anyone were to send me a virus you'd be in deep sh** I assure you. What I was saying in my orginal post was (if you read it) my son was looking for guitar tabs (which by the way are not copywrited and are public domain. There are many sites that post them legally) Several marketing companies are naming their hijack, malwarez etc .. after any popular software - informational ebooks - MPEG - JPEG -- anything to make YOU believe you've found what your looking for ... until you run the application .. then your hosed.
For instance: My son was looking for "jimi hendrix - little wing" guitar tabs .. found it and downloaded it. Of course when he opened it .. it ran no less then 5 malwarez and hijacked BOTH his browsers (mozilla and IE) one of the malwarez actually shutdown his anti-virus so that it could install without being detected! And no adware did not fix the problem - neither did hijackthis or anyother program. Thats destroying "personal property" and there is legal precedence for a law suit, which is being persued.
These companies won't do jack it's like the pot calling the kettle black and they know it all too well. The only recourse is to blackhole their network OR let them know you'll sue them.

I think thats a good idea Morgwen -- I'll post it on a private net for the users -- thanks

Ringo