Now that spammers are beginning to discover this new method of sending their messages to random people who are running Windows NT/2000/XP just by scanning for open IP addresses (in fact Someone is selling a $700 piece of software specifically to exploit this so the technological barrier is lowered fro people wishing to use this spamming technique) many people are looking for way to block those messages, and fortunately it's not even that hard to do.
If you're not connected to a network and don't need the "net send" command to send messages from one computer to another it's safe to disable the messenger service altogether this way:
quote:1. Click on the Start button and open the control panel.
2. Open the Performance and Maintenance control panel and go to Administrative Tools.
3. Now double-click on Services, then scroll to Messenger.
4. Double-click Messenger and click Stop to stop the service.
5. Change the startup type to Disable
for Windows 2000 users:
quote:1. Click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services
2. Scroll down and highlight "Messenger"
3. Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties.
4. Click the STOP button.
5. Select Disabled or Manual on the Startup Type drop-down menu
6. Click OK
Another option is to tell your firewall to block ports 131 and 139 if it isn't configured to do so already.
More information on this topic can be found in the linked articles and Asylum threads.
