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To: AFreeBird

Please tell us you have a hardware firewall as well.

What is that? I thought that those products were all I needed.


134 posted on 03/02/2008 6:34:08 PM PST by Chickensoup (If it is not permitted, it is prohibited. Only the government can permit....)
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To: Chickensoup
What is that?

A router to go between your cable or DSL modem and the PC. It will have a built in NAT firewall. Very handy thing to have from a security standpoint. ZoneAlarm and a NAT firewall are a great One-Two punch.

138 posted on 03/02/2008 6:38:42 PM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (Great spirits will always encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds.)
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To: Chickensoup
A hardware firewall is another layer of defense, on top of what you have on individual computers. It sits between the net (your cable/DSL modem), and all the systems in your household.

A hardware firewall is also known as a router, a gateway, a NAT (network address Translation - all computers in the household have a single address known to the net; local address' are hidden). A router with rules. Rules that try to hide your household's existence on the net. It doesn't respond to pings, ports are closed, logs (incoming and outgoing) are kept, and blanket domains (sites, or domains you don't want the young ones to visit) can be blocked, etc.

Computer security, as in any defense; is layered. The more layered the better. And while layers do add a level of complexity or inconvenience to your system; once learned, layers are good.

But even that, is no substitute for smart browsing. If you use a browser such as Firefox, another layer would be something like "NoScript". An extension that allows you to temporarily or permanently allow, or disallow the execution of Java, JavaScript and Flash plugins, depending on the sites you visits. White list and black listing.

As I mentioned previously, IE and Windows, by default, are not security friendly. It is up to you to secure them through the mechanisms available to them. <

If you don't feel what is provided it good enough, look for alternatives.

152 posted on 03/02/2008 7:25:12 PM PST by AFreeBird
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