I'm very familiar with firewalls and, if in the case of a business or a
lot of important data, would set up a Linux firewall at the house.
However, I run "bogus net" (192.168.xxx.xxx) internally without any
routing tables so it's pretty secure as is. One outside IP on the DSL
router...no routes table in the router either.
Yup...I run both Hardware and Software firewalls but occasionally leave
the sofware firewall off because its rather annoying with some websites
that I use (have to keep clicking "allow")...man I hate software
firewalls. ;)
- Bernd
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@BUFFNET.NET
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@BUFFNET.NET] On Behalf Of Mike
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 9:43 AM
To: dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net
Subject: Re: DML: Re: question to dmler's concerning online hackers into
pc's
Bernd,
Good to know that you are 100% stealth.
There is really no such thing as a hardware firewall, they are all
software. Some firewalls just have dedicated hardware for the job. To
be honest, the home DSL routers are not very good firewalls, but they do
the job in many cases. You are best off using a software firewall on
your PC as well (which I believe you do). One of the best firewalls
around is software, and you can set one up for quite cheap. All you
need to do is get an old PC (does not need a lot of power), install
NetBSD then use the built-in packet filtering firewall to filter your
traffic. It's not too hard to set up, and will offer a LOT more
protection than the DSL router.
Typically, if a hacker wants to get in and they know what they are doing
you need a very good security system to stop them. What is most
important is to be in stealth mode. Most "hacks" are script kiddies
that do a scan of an IP range to see what computers are available and
vulnerable. If your computer does not respond then they will never even
know it's there.
Mike
""Bernd D. Ratsch"" <bernd@texas.net> wrote in message
news:000001c1ac6f$efc44810$090aa8c0@homenet.com...
>
> Just ran the "ShieldsUP" utility....
>
> "If all of the tested ports were shown to have stealth status, then
> for all intents and purposes your computer doesn't exist to scanners
> on the Internet!
>
> It means that either your computer is turned off or disconnected from
> the Net (which seems unlikely since you must be using it right now!)
> or an effective stealth firewall is blocking all unauthorized external
> contact with your computer. This means that it is completely opaque to
> random scans and direct assault. Even if this machine had previously
> been scanned and logged by a would-be intruder, a methodical return to
> this IP address will lead any attacker to believe that your machine is
> turned off, disconnected, or no longer exists. You couldn't ask for
> anything better.
>
> There's one additional benefit: scanners are actually hurt by probing
> this machine! You may have noticed how slowly the probing proceeded.
> This was caused by your firewall! It was required, since your firewall
> is discarding the connection-attempt messages sent to your ports. A
> non-firewalled PC responds immediately that a connection is either
> refused or accepted, telling a scanner that it's found a live one ...
> and allowing it to get on with its scanning. But your firewall is
> acting like a black hole for TCP/IP packets! This means that it's
> necessary for a scanner to sit around and wait for the maximum
> round-trip time possible - across the entire Net, into your machine,
> and back again - before it can safely conclude that there's no
> computer at the other end. That's very cool. "
>
> And to think, I left my software firewall off just to check. ;)
>
> Hardware firewalls are the only true protection (and as Shane
> stated...NOT on a Windows OS based machine.)
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:03:57 EDT