definitely use ethernet. also definitely, absolutely get a good hardware firewall, read the manual, and change the default password on the thing!( there are now a number of exploits aimed at firewalls rather than routers, particularly since the majority of them are still setup to use the factory default password. not changing that number is like having 1-2-3 be the combination to your briefcase, easy to remember, but stupid!). you definitely need a firewall, despite what some may say, crackers do try to break into individual machines, in fact there are email viruses designed to take over a machine so it can be used for spamming, denial of service attacks, etc. some of these things are also done without viruses. os x has had a major security hole in the past (all versions of bsd did, and it was big enough to drive a truck through but quickly and easily fixed), translation, despite what some people seem to think based on religious fervor, os x, like any and all os's, does have significant security holes.
pc's may be the main target of crackers, but if someone knows of a mac hole, they'll use it, and macs are becoming a more popular target because of their increasing popularity and possibly also because many mac users are somewhat smug about the lack of vulnerabilities, i would suggest that the emperor has no clothes... i'd also suggest actually looking at the firewall logs occasionally, sometimes if a break-in is successful it will be obvious from the log- for instance there's an explorer bug where a fake plugin, disguised as a picture in a popup ad actually sets it up so that all of your keystrokes are sent to a sight in russia where they search the data for passwords and credit card information. i've been unable to find any info on whether this affects only pc's or pc and mac, but it could easily be both as most of the code is the same, they are not 2 separate programs, just the same program compiled for 2 different machines with a few minor changes necessitated by the os etc. (codewarrior for instance makes it almost trivial to write one program that works on multiple machine types, and this is a very common practice for any application that runs on more than one type of machine, and usually that means any bugs and flaws will be on both versions). in this case, if all destination ip's are logged you'd see data frequently going to this russian site, though more than likely you wouldn't, however a good firewall should stop this data and log the destination, making you aware that your' machine has been compromised. this is particularly important for laptop users who may log on from somewhere else some of the time and may not always be behind a firewall. if nothing else, a spare iic can be made into a fine firewall with several versions of *nix for free, and so can an old pc box, and even a very slow box works just fine for this application. -- <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm> proof that the U.S. media is now state controlled! Ask your' local tv station why the hell they aren't airing the news any more! Our system of government requires an informed public, with their eyes open. -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
