I download the O/S patches on my office PC, save them to a memory stick and install them on my notebook without it being connected to the internet. I only rarely connect the notebook to the internet (using Mozilla, not IE) and then only after an O/S patch. The Blackice firewall slings out warnings of intruders every thirty seconds or so while on-line. Its become a sad, sad place, the internet. Maybe its close to outliving its usefulness?
I find the "Geek" mindset interesting. Why are so many geeky types fascinated by intruding into other peole's PCs? Its not only the bad guys, IT people - Sytem Administrators and so on - are just as guilty. My office desktop is packed with spyware installed by the IT department. Then there's the O/S itself - malicious hackers often make use of the information stored in all those tracking log files kept by the operating system; but why do Microsoft feel the need to embed these files into the O/S in the first place? They don't serve any really useful purpose that I can see. If anyone came into your house rummaging through the drawers and cupboards to find out what's in there, that would be a criminal offence. In some (wiser?) parts of the world it would be quite legal to shoot the intruder dead if you caught them at it. So why is it considered OK to crack into people's computers?