network places

I've had two sites pop up in my network places that I didn't put in my network places and have never visited. The first one I deleted, but when I deleted it two other shares from within my network disappeared. I looked in the recycling bin and only the thing I deleted was in there. So, where did there other things go? I have tried to add them in again but it won't recognize them. Also about the two foreign network places, they were both some .edu sites. I only know one because I deleted the other one. It is \\www.accd.edu\district. Anyways do you all think I've been hacked? Both things when clicked on opened a folder with nothing in it. So, what is everyones view on what has happened? By the way I'm running winXP pro.
Thanks

Are you on a broadband connection? Do you do any NAT or is your IP address the one given by your ISP?

I don't get this now, but when I used to have a DSL connected directly (rather than NAT'ed behind a router) I could see other home users networks that were on the same subnet as my IP address. I surfed around and found that most of them I couldn't actually get into.

I am not sure if it was a function of the way Windows 2000 did network discovery for automatically adding to the Network Neighborhood, or a screw-up in security settings at the ISP's end or a little of both.

My gut reaction is more along those lines. I don't think it sounds like a hack from what you described so far.

Hope that helps

I have a wide area network IP and a local IP. The sites that popped up were not there about a week ago. Also I want to know how to get the shares from within my network back up in my network places. They just disappeared. At the moment the other computer on my network is disconnected but when I first tried to re-add it to my network places it was connected and it still wouldn't let me. Also I don't know what NAT is so I can't tell you if I do any of it.
Thanks

Did you enable / configure the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) on your Windows XP Pro machine or install any other firewall software? If so, that may be blocking your ability to communicate freely with the rest of your network.

I found this link for troubleshooting Windows XP networking problems that may help as well: Windows XP Network Troubleshooting

Oh, and it doesn't seem relevant anymore, but just FYI, here is a definition for NAT

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NAT, otherwise known as Network Address Translation, is used to mask the true identity of internal computers. Typically, the NAT server or device has a public IP address that can be seen by external Hosts. Computers on the local network use a completely different set of IP addresses. When traffic goes out the internal IP address is removed and replaced with the public IP address of the NAT device. When replies come back to the NAT device it determines which internal computer the response belongs to and routes it to its proper destination.

An added benefit is the ability to have more than one computer communicate on the Internet with only one publicly available IP address. Many home routers use Network Address Translation to allow multiple computers to share one IP address.

About.com NetSecurity Glossary

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It probably was just the XP firewall. Does a computer your trying to add to my network places have to be connected at the time you add it? I tried it just now but the computer isn't connected.

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Does a computer your trying to add to my network places have to be connected at the time you add it? I tried it just now but the computer isn't connected.

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Yes. You won't be able to add network shares from a computer that's not connected to the network. Just connect the computer to the network, turn it on, and you should be able to re-add the shares. It's possible that they disappeared simply because the computer recognized that the computer was disconnected from the network.

AJ

I'm sure you're right. Thank you very much tonybradley and avdven.