I'm assuming everyone is running an antivirus program who has a PC.

Define PC for me please. PCs now encompass, Windows machines, Apple Machines, Linux Machines... and others.

I'm assuming everyone at home has a hardware firewall in their router. Nobody at home should have every TCP/UDP port open.

I have a Hardware router/firewall/wireless-bridge, but I have "all traffic" going to a specific machine on my network. Good luck with that.

I've never come across a Mac virus infection, YMMV.

Mostly just Malware. Viruses are super hard to make and run now a days... not worth the effort.

Yes, there are botnets out there that are looking for PCs and micro-controllers to infect. Yes, if Kevin Mitnick or the NSA want to break into our Macs at home, they can probably do it.

A good assumption. If someone is willing to put enough effort into something... you really have nearly zero chance of withstanding it.

I refuse to believe that every time I touch a PC that I'm taking my life in my hands.

http://xkcd.com/1180/

More than likely... its Malware.

If I were running a business with a public web presence, I would be much more concerned about viruses and so forth. When money is at stake and downtime has real costs, one has to be more careful. I'm not. I take reasonable precautions.

Funny, I just did a presentation on that. Supposed to only have 20 minutes. Culled from over 50 pages of painstaking detail... to 11 plus an ending page on China. I still went over by 10 minutes. Not as bad as the guy that followed me... or the one that followed him.

(Our network(s) at work has more firewalls than I want to think about...)

MOAR FIREWALLS GOOD! Seriously though... Public and then Firewalls on specific network segments or on routers. Plus additional "Application on cloud/grid" firewalls is one more layer.

But back on topic - Should Ashton update his Java as soon as updates are available? I say yes. You?

I'm of the opinion that Ashton needs to start using OSX like it just works and stop cat footing around it. Since the Almighty SJ is gone, Apple isn;t about ready to forsake all the "Karma" they built up with this guy. They are going to do as complete a job as they can, if kind of slow... especially for something they don't really like (Java and Flash). The updates to OSX are typically a good thing.