Quote Originally Posted by msmith
Hmm - thanks for the replies.

I am still somewhat unclear how they managed to get my e-mail address just by my being connected to the Internet. Would the fact that Knoppix boots with known passwords mean that you are open to anyone hacking such details if you enter them in one of the Knoppix client applications (eg. a mail program)?

My PC doesn't normally 'leak' e-mail addresses unless it has been compromised. I am trying to suss out the most likely cause of the compromise.

Is the STD version of Knoppix likely to be more secure by default? There's no point in using the CD as a utility disk if it is easily hacked the minute you go online !
I doubt if the fault is Knoppix passwords or lack thereof. After all, most hackers would be targeting the much more common Windows systems which have NO passwords. You could, however, make it a practise to set passwords before proceeding. Just open a terminal, 'sudo passwd' to set root password, 'sudo passwd knoppix' to set user knoppix password (actually I don't think you need sudo for this one).
One would think STD should be more secure but I don't know anything about it.