Text 7222, 67 rader
Skriven 2006-08-21 16:54:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av PAUL ROGERS
Ärende: Re: firewall
====================
-=> PAUL ROGERS wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC> Now I've got to look into routers to gain an extra measure of
 WC> security.
 WC> See one at a local dealer for $50.

 PR> Nooooooooooo.

 Not an entirely unwelcome response.

 PR> OK, that's the initial response.  But you're looking at
 PR> something like Linksys, et al?  That's what I'm assuming.
 PR> Bad choice.  Many reasons:

 PR> 1) Being a commercial product, marketing has defined a product
 PR> that will appeal to the greatest common denominator.  It will do
 PR> a great many things poorly, whether you need them or not,
 PR> nothing well.

 PR> 2) Being widely used commercial products, there will be
 PR> incentive for malefactors to find weaknesses.  There's no such
 PR> thing as security by obscurity, but, like Windows, ubiquity is
 PR> it's own justification for investigation of weaknesses.

 PR> 3) Being commercial there will be a conflict of interests in the
 PR> manufacturer over providing software updates, preserving the
 PR> utility of "obsolete" products.  (I type this on an original
 PR> 1991 vintage 486DX33 DOS/Win3.1 box.  Who needs Longhorn, me or
 PR> Microsoft?)

 PR> IMNSHO, what you should do is obtain another PC, one you can use
 PR> as a firewall/router, and as a backup for your primary machine.

 Lends itself to my limited resources and backup
 system desire.

 PR> With Pascal's & others in this group's help, my current firewall
 PR> box is a Compaq 2265 pizza-box, that is a bit clever--because
 PR> its BIOS will not allow booting off an extended format 1680K
 PR> floppy.  A regular floppy is too small, so I had to let it boot
 PR> from the hard drive.

I've no concerns about the physical security of
actual computer as I'm the only one here
I don't even have a BIOS password set.

 PR> Now it has a Win98SE partition, for
 PR> controlling the TI chipset hardware PCI modem, sigh.  There's a
 PR> Linux partition to provide grub's multibooting, and a partition
 PR> for LEAF/Bering.  I can select any of them at boot time.  Bering
 PR> is the default boot.  If I need to diddle the configuration, all
 PR> that is there, initially.  But the ipup script, run as soon as
 PR> the modem connects, deletes all the IDE drivers for the hard
 PR> drive from the RAM disks, all references to it in places like
 PR> /etc/fstab & /var/log/messages, and deletes itself.  If you got
 PR> in and looked around, it hides the evidence.

A good deal of this went by me but I'll save it for future reference.

  PR> The thing is, with a PC-based router you can reuse standard
 PR> parts, update it as Linux progresses, and use it as a backup.

Keep a moving target, I see.

 
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