[vox-tech] Email Password Security

[Robert G. Scofield]

I've been having unbelievably horrible security problems on both my family's 
computer (Win98SE) and the Windows partition of this dual boot system.  Two 
weeks ago someone was stealing my email from my ISP's server.  I then got 
Norton Personal Firewall for both computers, and for the last three days the 
dial up connection kept repeatedly starting on my computer  both when the 
computer booted up and when it shutdown.  In fact I couldn't even shut it 
down, all I could do is reboot into Linux and then shutdown.  Also 
interesting is that Norton Firewall was knocked out.  (And I wonder if the 
hacker or worm got in through Linux because I wasn't online in Windows very 
much.  The Windows partition automatically mounts when Linux boots.)

I've reformatted both computers in the last week.   On both computers I have 
disabled the automatic use of passwords to both log onto the ISP, and then to 
get email.  So now you have to type the password in at least twice to get 
email.  This is inconvenient, and so my question is, am I being too paranoid?  
Is it really necessary to disable the feature that retains the password?

Thank you.

PS.  I've got to use a password just to send this message.

Bob