I've been wondering why my firewall has been going crazy over some persistent inbound UDP packet wanting to access port 1434 on my machine - and now I know why. I've just discovered that some nasty little worm, W32.SQLExp.Worm, has been causing havoc on the Internet early this morning!
The worm takes advantage of a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server software. However, since I don't have SQL Server on my machine, I'm pretty much safe from it. Still, the probes to port 1434 were driving me nuts, so I cooked up a quick firewall rule to auto-block any more UDP connections to that port.
I bought a brand new game controller today from the PC World online store. So very soon I'll be able to get back to guiding the Caps to the playoffs and the Stanley Cup in NHL 2003! Speaking of the Caps, they're in action tonight against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada.