Hi, THE ROCK writes...
> My question is this: Is the firewall protection > automatic once the network (in my case it's just one computer at the moment) > is up and running or is there something else that I need to do? Having never replied to a mineral before, I hope this helps... First, what you're firewalling is the TCP/IP connection to your computer. Second, in order for many services to use TCP/IP at the same time, TCP/IP information packets are routed to "socket ports," which you can think of as (very roughly) something like telephone extensions in your computer where various programs listen and reply. The packets sent to these ports contain information and sometimes commands. Some of the listening programs can do many things upon receipt of a command, some not so many. Some of the ports are only useful for a local area, some are used for internet services. Third, when people try to hack into computers, one common thing to do is find a port that a program is listening to, where the listening program is both capable of doing interesting things and can be tricked into doing these things without authorization. Frequently, as for instance with FTP, the authorization is just a password, so someone with lots of time can just try lots of passwords (or have a program do it) and eventually get access. As it turns out, Windows (and to some extent, Unix) frequently has a number of port socket services (the listening programs) running, many of which the user doesn't care about or doesn't think about: telnet, SQL server, etc... Generally a Mac has fewer of these, but (especially with OSX) there are some to worry about. Fourth, what a firewall/router primarily does is transfer packets between your computers and the internet (that's the router part) and filter packets addressed to ports that you don't want exposed to the web. So, for instance, if you just exposed the ports for HTTP and friends, nobody could repeatedly send hacking packets to an FTP or Telnet port because the firewall wouldn't pass them. There are other things firewalls do (such as ghosting servers for various protocols) but this is probably the most important security feature. Fifth, most routers are set up with a pretty good selection of filters right out of the box. However, if you want to start doing unusual things (like running VPC, for instance, or perhaps one of the customize gaming networks) then it would pay you to learn what the various ports are and how to set filtering options on your router. I'm no expert on the D-Link, but my routers allow me to choose which ports to pass inbound, which to pass outbound, and quite a few other filtering options. It's not hard to figure out. I'd poke around for a while; you're not likely to do anything permanently wrong. Hope this helps... Best wishes, -greg PS: > ON THIS ROCK....I WILL....PREVAIL.... OK, but what about everywhere else? -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/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/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
