Click, a bland and normally inoffensive computing programme broadcast by the BBC in the UK decided to warn it's viewers about botnets (again) but this time they raised the stakes.

The programme makers descended into the interwebs underground, purchased a botnet and used it to send spam to email accounts that they owned.

The Guardian questions the legality of this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/mar/12/bbc-botnet-legality-questioned) and references a good blog posting at http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2868.

I'm just amazed that given the artifice of television that they actually went and did this when it could easily be simulated using computers they controlled. The BBC changed users' desktops wallpaper to display a warning.

Very nice of them. Of course no one is supposed to do this and it's outlawed by the Computer Misuse Act. You can't go accessing someone's computer even if your intentions are honourable.

Doubtless they won't get prosecuted but there is the issue of what the hell the money was used for. Maybe we should send the FBI and RIAA around to have a word about supporting terrorism and copyright theft

Anyway there was that question I promised. I know what I'm doing with computers. To normal people I'm a god but here I'm probably average. My laptop has AV, a firewall and I run Spybot every now and then. I use Firefox with NoScript and I employ common sense re security. Windows is patched and up to date.
But how safe am I? What could I do to improve matters and what other software could I run to ensure I haven't installed malware?