Music files aren’t vectors for viruses or spyware. Some video files can be, particularly DRM-tainted WMV files that take you to a web page–using an embedded Internet Explorer, of course–when you try to view them. Blame Microsoft for that. Sometimes you’ll find EXE files containing spyware on file sharing sites, but they’re usually porn, not music, and they’re usually self-extracting archives, which can be safely opened with WinZip or WinRAR. (Or so I’ve heard. Yeah.)
There is, however, a real risk of viruses/trojans with actual warez–applications and games–as well as cracks, keygens, and other black market executables, because the whole idea of that stuff is you’re downloading a program from some unaccountable shady character. Sometimes there’s a way to verify the file, so you can at least know that what you downloaded is exactly what the original release group intended for you to get, but usually not. Or so I’ve heard.
As far as Kazaa, well, Kazaa itself includes spyware, so you’re exposed to it no matter what you download. That’s why Kazaa Lite was created.
I usually just nod, smile and tell them the types of sites to avoid. As to the stepchildren blaming…when weatherbug is reporting the weather for Three Rivers, CA (where thay happen to live) and I live in Fresno…
I don’t DL warez or cracks in my shop…I REALLY dont want to get my business added to the long list of shops MS is suing for copyright infringements.
I’m a computer Professional and like many others here at SDMB, I build and maintain my own computers and network. I was in Minneapolis for an IBM computer convention when my PC got hit. My computer was used my either my wife or my BIL or SIL, my wife knows how paranoid I am about software being installed on my PC, so I assume one of my In-laws clicked something in an Email. I find most viruses and Malawi come from Email’s rather than illegal/porn sites. We use to have an average of one major infection a month at work and it was usually my job to eradicate the infection and makes the repairs to the Op system. Most of the infections was some relative sending a cute little animation or a link to a site warning of the horrors of licking envelopes.
As I said, my investigation pointed to a Windows Media Add-on that was probably used to play some Email link.
Jim {BTW: it is easy to get porn from malware free sites and with SP2 of XP up to date it is hard to get infected without being decieved into installing it}
