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Are there any articles on the matter?

How does this work? When I set up a network, what exactly happens? To draw an analogy, is it like opening up a road that anyone can use? For someone to gain access to my computer, is the only means to do that through a server's recv(), or can it gain access by other means? What if I only want 1 isp to connect to my computer, can I block all others out?

Again, an article would be great, if anyone knows a good one they would recommend. I'll search some myself too.

There are many books about network applications secutcurity. One of them is: Writing Secure code

No one can gain an access to your computer if you are simply opening a network connection. You must have some sort of security flaw in the server application and someone must figure out what it is before they can even start attempting to break in. You are in much more danger when browsing the web with IE than when learning winsock, so dont worry.