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Re: New Computer? Six Steps to Safer Surfing

  • From: Iljitsch van Beijnum
  • Date: Sun Dec 19 09:28:18 2004 
On 19-dec-04, at 5:45, Sean Donelan wrote:
Some manufactures, such as Apple AirPort Extreme, also make dialup gateways with dialup modem PPP and firewall capabilities.
Actually the Airport Extreme doesn't do firewalling.


Its a myth that dialup is "safer" than broadband.
Well, everything takes longer, including getting infected. :-)

But why are we discussing this again, for the 2^56th time? People on this list either know how to do the right thing (with or without a firewall), or are too stubborn to, regardless of having all the relevant information.

As for the people who aren't on this list, the majority of them don't care, so let's wait until they start to, and do something that's more useful and more fun in the mean time.

And:

NIC manufacturers will start including built-in hardware firewalls.
You're kidding, right?

If the NIC filter is easy to configure in software, it's just hardware support for software firewalling which you don't believe in. If the NIC filter isn't easy to configure in software, people can no longer use their unsafe protocols even on LANs, defeating the purpose of these unsafe protocols (conspiracy nuts may believe the purpose of these protocols is their WAN mis-use, of course).

--
"Every computer sold in the US is safe by default. It is powered off,
disconnected, in a factory sealed box" - Sean Donelan, on NANOG