Jim -- You are correct in what you say about the need for firewalling in DSL. (At least approximately correct, enough so that my substantive disagreements are quibbles not worth making. Though some, like Back Orifice, sre sort of off-topic for a Debian list.)
But the question was: What is **special** in DSL? And other common methods for high-speed connection, most notably cable modem service, have the exact same problems as the ones you describe. The distinctions you make are properly between point-to-point services and (for lack of a better term) "ISP-LAN" services. To know which you are on, check your subnet mask for your external connection. External connections with large-capacity netmasks are, at least potentially (the DSL modem or cable modem itself *can* firewall some of this stuff) more vulnerable to the sorts of snooping that have to run fro the same Ethernet, and in that sense are more vulnerable than p-to-p connections. At 03:19 PM 8/2/00 EDT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... >> Why? What is special in DSL? ... > >bc. you are on a domain subnet. EVERY other connection (like the ISPs total >cuatomer base) can download free netadmin software and run it in promiscuous >mode (it lets anybody "in"/"on") to then receive the grand scheme of the >grand stream of ALL packets that enter that subnet. ... -- ------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--- Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------
