[jbcohen]

Well fafa in the real world one of the hats I wear is that of an Information security Officer and as such I have multiple degrees in this area and I do have some advice on the matter.

1) first viruses and hacks are operating system (OS) dependent meaning an attack on a Windows based PC will not work on your Sony PRS because the OS is different. What you need to do is read information technology (IT) magazines looking for information on Sony PRS attacks, as the attack has to be specifically engineered around the Sony OS. To date the number of attacks on the Sony OS equals zero.

2) Second hackers are not going to attack a low profile OS they are going to go after the one with the biggest pay off (called the payload) and in the world of electronic readers that happens to be the Kindle. What you need to do here is to read IT magazines and look for news about kindle hacks. Also stay tuned to the section of this forum called Kindle or Kindle developer, any time someone talks about a Kindle hack you need to notice that and watch for hacks coming to the Sony PRS world. So far all of the hacks on the kindle have been by owners hacking their own device. And that is not really that much of a concern, what you need to be concerned about is when those hackers start hacking other people's devices remotely.

3) Pay attention to IT Security sites such as Mc Affee and Norton Anti Virus for news about Sony hacks.

4) Keep a watch on Sony's PRS web sites and look for upgrades and updates (I use those words specifically so please pay attention to those particualr words). Anytime Sony finds a security hole they will release either an update or an upgrade, upgrades are more drastic then an update is.

5) Download and install Secunia PSI, a free software package that scans your PC for software than determines if all of the software has been upgraded to the latest version and will apply the upgrades in a lot of cases.

6) Ensure that your virus scanner has the latest signatures.

7) Use software other than that from Microsoft, now I have nothing agains Bill Gates and his company its that the company has been so sucessfull that it has become a victim of its own sucess. Microsoft software is a highly visiable and the second biggest target for hackers (exceeded only by Apple). Other software packages are lower profile and are less likely to be attacked then Microsoft has been. Try Open Office (a free version of Microsoft Office) and Mozilla Mindfield (this is the pre-release versions of Firefox).