You seems to have a strange twisted oppinion of reality. Scanning of ports been done since the beginning of the internet, and it was not originally intended for bad purposes. Nothing that hackers used nowaday been originally created for bad purposes, they are merely already existing tools that hackers use because they are easy to use, efficient and, more to the point, available.

The realy reason why Windows XP is the most easily hackable OS right now is because it's the most spread worldwide. I sure remember Win98 in it's early days, it was seen exactly like XP: a new piece of .... not worth the money in comparison to 95 and which had security holes as big as the craters on the Moon. But then, after several years, they got SE out which corrected the majority of the security holes... And not that far afterward (or perhaps it was already out), the next version got out and the attacks on Win98 severly dropped... Not because SE was any good at all (it was merely correcting bugs which should not be there in the first place [man, did I've already heard that somewhere? LOL]) but because the hackers were centering their effort on the new OS instead.

Having a firewall is not a must when you are connected to the internet, it's a necesity (sp?). Now that you know, you are just enlightened on the matter. However, the way you write it bring me to beleive you are slightly too much paranoid on the matter. ;)

Eagle is right. If a new OS came out and became the most widely used, it would become the most widely hacked. Its just that so many people use xp that it is so vulnerable. But it doesn't have to be, just get a decent firewall, and stop frequenting warez sites and stuff, and you might have less problems.

I think that if you don't go around badmouthing people on the internet, your less likely to be hacked. Your just another brick in the wall...

PS:Theres sooo many hacker out there, but most don't know what they are doing (I'll admit it, I experimented with telnet back in the day). So a decent firewall will stop most if not all attempts.

I liked 95, I liked 98 and I never used Me (though from the rumours I've heard that's not a bad thing!) :D

They weren't perfect but when somebody shows me an OS that works perfectly I promise I'll use it! :D

Things improve as they age so every new edition is bound to be better than the last (except maybe in the Me case). They weren't bad, they've just been improved on!

i made quite good experiences with win98. it was mostly stable and served its
purposes quite well, back then. win95, though, was rather disappointing but
that might result from the fact, that i probably didn't have the required know-how
to deal properly with its issues.

i never used the ME version, but opinions i heard about it were very diversed.
some ppl praised it, some hated it...

9x is by far the most inefficient operating system ever devised. You had to restart your operating system every time you ran a game. (because of the fact that programs take up memory even when they're shut down) Also the fact that 9x is based on dos does not help it either. The best point of 9x is that it is backwards compatible with DOS. :ranting:

you must remember how old it is

exactly my point, it needs to die. :rifle:

Windows 95 wasn't a dissapointmwent as people think. It introduced Direct X. It brought in the modern Windows GUI. It became easier to use and faster.

Windows 98 was... IS the best OS out there. It dosn't take much resources to run, ihas MS-DOS, and is just as easy to use as the other OS. That and since everyone uses Xp, there arnt as many 98 hackers.

Windows ME is crap in my book. Windows 1.1 ran better in my opinion LOL. Crashed all the time and it weas nothing new.

btw the BEST bootscreen ever was the Windows NT 4 bootscreen. The pic were clouds and space meet :ok:

Found a pic:

http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guide...sh/winnt40.png

I'm not a paranoid. :angry:
Let me tell you, how Bastin (forgive me, but he's the only living example I know :D ) steals money from users of Internet cards. He entering on special site, where all users of I-net cards of one our Russian firm can see their amount of money left on card. Then, with the help of one prog (I won't tell you the name), he connects to 79 port, which can show you the list of online users currently connected with you to the I-net on this site. Then he scans ports of this users, and, if the port, who controls command "net send", opened, send the net send message, that tells that user about problems on server, controlling I-net cards and that the user needs to send him (Bastin aka server) pin code of his card. Because, that people are good and... well... (I can't find a proper word)... responsible (from "respond", if I said right :blink: ) by default, many of this victims sended their pin code to "server". Thus, Bastin have a free I-net. I have that prog, that connects to 79 port that Bastin uses, and I know how to fool people in this way I told you, but I'm not a thief and I never tried to do this. And in last 3 weeks it seems, that Bastin began to feel sorry about how many people he left without their honest bought I-net cards. Or maybe he began to afraid of tracing, because if he will get caught with this deals, he'll soon, probably, will be in prison.

This can be stopped with any firewall.

That's the real problem. I would say those people are very guillible and stupid, at best. And I am in a good mood today. :angel:

This is best described as a BKAC (Between Keyboard And Chair) problem. Any respectable Internet services will never ask for a credit card number directly on a public network. Second to that, the internet service is not responsable of such a thievery since the problem doesn't come from their servers or software, but from the client him/herself because they gave away their unique ID code... :rolleyes:

Edit: Oh, and this is not called "hacking" per se. It's pure fraud.

The only hacking occur when your "friend" get the infos he need on the server, infos which are probably not supposed to be available to public. So, as you see, a PC itself is pretty safe from the method you mentioned.