Re: Cable internet
On Wed, October 18, 2006 1:21 am, David Cuthbert wrote: My DragonFly box doesn't actually connect directly; I use a different machine as a firewall. And you will definitely want a very restrictive firewall configuration; the number of daily hack attempts and portscans I get is staggering. (But this is hardly unique to Comcast.) For instance, last night: Checking for rejected mail hosts: 7 k12coffee.net 3 e-standard.biz 2 yahoo.co.kr 2 positive-id.biz 2 eu-vest.biz 1 tgflk.com 1 schmidtbank.de 1 repairnet.biz 1 funeasy.biz 1 edenbs.demon.co.uk 1 drop-bear.com 1 caracha.net 1 admin.darcoinc.us These levels are actually pretty low, because I know my cable ISP (Time Warner) is blocking some of the worse scanners at the network border. I'd see a large number of probing attempts on whatever ports were available - FTP, SSH, whatever. Most of the exploits are for Windows vulnerabilities, but not all.
Re: Cable internet
On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 10:24:41PM -0700, David Cuthbert wrote: I'm puzzled. Why block the Comcast SMTP server instead of just the Comcast dynamic IP block? The zombies are highly unlikely to try to use the official SMTP server. They are in fact very likely to use it. Many spamming viruses have their own SMTP implementation and send directly, but an increasing number uses MAPI and will simply take over the SMTP settings from Outlook, including smarthost and even SMTP authentication. Geert
Re: Cable internet
Bryan Berch wrote: It is about I get rid of dial-up and get something faster. My only other choice is Comcast broadband. My questions are: 1. Has any one used it and is it worth it? 2. What cable modem did you use? Thanks Bryan I've used Motorola on three different providers and Terrayon on two, prefer the Motorola. All these are mass-produced to a price target and have components that deal with analog and are exposed to rude spikes and such during their lifetime. You CAN get a bad one - right out-of-the box, and the DO suffer damage and failure in use. My response has been to rent, not buy, as a replacement seems to be needed every 12-24 months where there are regular thunderstorms. Caveat: Use some other mx for your e-mail, not comcast. Our MX'en blacklist all of comcast, as they do nothing useful to block outbound to port 25, and are *infested* with Win-Zombies. Bill
Re: Cable internet
David Cuthbert wrote: Bryan Berch wrote: It is about I get rid of dial-up and get something faster. My only other choice is Comcast broadband. My questions are: 1. Has any one used it and is it worth it? 2. What cable modem did you use? I've been using it for ~3 years now. I've had two major issues during that time: 1. At one point, a crew was doing some work in my neighborhood (back when I was in Pittsburgh) and attached a filter to the wrong line (mine). 2. This February, a storm blew through the island (I'm now near Seattle) and took power out for five days. (Comcast, to their credit, brought in generators to power their neighborhood relays after two days... alas, didn't help me much.) These incidents aside, availability for me has been closer to 99.9% than 99%. Their policies seem reasonable. They'll get on your case if you start serving a lot of traffic, from what I understand. Many of us at work run personal servers (ssh, webmail, etc.) and haven't heard a peep from them. Stay out of their hair, they'll stay out of yours. I thought they were blocking outbound SMTP connections, but this does not appear to be the case right now. At any rate, don't expect to have your mail accepted by anyone if you bypass their SMTP servers (the entire netblock is RBLed, and with good reason). I haven't touched Usenet in years, so I can't comment on their news servers. My experience with DSL was less than pleasant. Verizon had the oddest routes, and probably borderline 99% availability. North Pittsburgh Telephone (sigh) was down around 95%. Getting a reliable connection anywhere was an adventure. So as long as you get a ethernet cable modem there should be no problem connecting? Is there any thing special in configuring it to work with dragonfly or is it just dhcp?
Re: Cable internet
On Tue, October 17, 2006 3:27 pm, Bryan Berch wrote: So as long as you get a ethernet cable modem there should be no problem connecting? Yes. I'm assuming your computer has an ethernet port, of course. Is there any thing special in configuring it to work with dragonfly or is it just dhcp? It will usually be just DHCP. If it requires something special (like PPTP, which I've only heard of with DSL), get online to here and people can help you get it set up.
Re: Cable internet
On Mon, October 16, 2006 9:11 pm, Bryan Berch wrote: It is about I get rid of dial-up and get something faster. My only other choice is Comcast broadband. My questions are: 1. Has any one used it and is it worth it? 2. What cable modem did you use? In my 13 years of access to broadband (6 of which was spent working at a cable operator), you are the first person I've ever heard who asked should I switch from dialup? The only thing worse than dialup is no access at all. As for modems, they all should be built to the DOCSIS standard, so any model should work. I have always had ISP-supplied cable modems, which is fine with me because no model ever lasted long enough to have made it financially worth purchasing it separately.
Re: Cable internet
Bryan Berch wrote: It is about I get rid of dial-up and get something faster. My only other choice is Comcast broadband. My questions are: 1. Has any one used it and is it worth it? 2. What cable modem did you use? I've been using it for ~3 years now. I've had two major issues during that time: 1. At one point, a crew was doing some work in my neighborhood (back when I was in Pittsburgh) and attached a filter to the wrong line (mine). 2. This February, a storm blew through the island (I'm now near Seattle) and took power out for five days. (Comcast, to their credit, brought in generators to power their neighborhood relays after two days... alas, didn't help me much.) These incidents aside, availability for me has been closer to 99.9% than 99%. Their policies seem reasonable. They'll get on your case if you start serving a lot of traffic, from what I understand. Many of us at work run personal servers (ssh, webmail, etc.) and haven't heard a peep from them. Stay out of their hair, they'll stay out of yours. I thought they were blocking outbound SMTP connections, but this does not appear to be the case right now. At any rate, don't expect to have your mail accepted by anyone if you bypass their SMTP servers (the entire netblock is RBLed, and with good reason). I haven't touched Usenet in years, so I can't comment on their news servers. My experience with DSL was less than pleasant. Verizon had the oddest routes, and probably borderline 99% availability. North Pittsburgh Telephone (sigh) was down around 95%. Getting a reliable connection anywhere was an adventure.
