what is this magic?

[IanMarlowe]

I was at this one website. They were trying to prove to you how useless your computers firewalls were, and that all you had to do is click on a hyperlink, and your CD drive would open. Well, I clicked on the link, and my CD drive opened! Do you think that this was a scripting language that did this? If so, why couldn't you stop other computer functions, such as print screen? That would be awsome. Or did they use something else?

[cr3ative]

It was most probably VBscript, which AFAIK only works in Internet Explorer.

If you really want to test your firewall, use ShieldsUP! from GRC - https://grc.com/

cr3

[StellarDevil]

Ofcource your firewall is useless against something that is on your harddrive!!
This is for the same reason why firewalls don't work against viruses.

The most efective programs against malicious spyware/viruses are anti virus and malware protection programs like addaware or search and destroy.

Firewalls are to protect against trojan software and general misuse of networks for obscure progerams or unwanted servers. But they also function as gateways for internal servers.

So as u can see these are totaly different terrains and the poeple making sites like this are genaraly poeple who want to create fear in unknowing poeple (Or the site makers are unknowing themselves or plain dumb).

All in all if u are still scared of mallware go firefox and save yourself from 90% of the hoaxing and malware out there.

Last but not least posting in forums or reading around in them generaly helps u sort fact from fiction like u did.

Hope this information helps u a bit. Also the shields up isn't a bad idea, it shows open ports in your firewall wich u might not want to have open in most cases.

[Twey]

There was a site circulating around the Internet a while ago saying "Your computer is insecure! I can tell your IP address!"
Oh, really. That couldn't be how the server is able to communicate with me, could it?

This sort of nonsense is always being put about by someone. If you've got a firewall, secure your browser properly, and run some antivirus, you'll probably be fine, as long as you're not too fast and loose with your passwords.
If you're technically minded (A.K.A. a geek ) and really worried about security, check out OpenBSD, which prides itself on being one of the most secure operating systems in common use.