Thank you Adrian; Your answer(s) have certainly put me on the right track of what I wanted to know. I am going to print out your responses and read them carefully. I have several TCP/IP manuals here that I can consult for clarification, and I can always google. But your answers got me past the concept level of TCP into the kind of nitty-gritty I need to understand something. On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 12:23 -0400, Adrian Irving-Beer wrote: > On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 11:16:58AM -0400, William Case wrote: > > > I am particularly confused by the concept that something is > > "listening" on certain ports. I hope there isn't a little guy in my > > computer with big ears, because he is probably dead by now. I > > haven't been feeding him. > > No more than there are people singing inside your radio. :) [large snip] Regards Bill