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Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 09:04:49 -0400
From: Ernest Christley <echristley@nc.rr.com>
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To: Rotary motors in aircraft <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Re: Off topic-DSL hook up
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Jerry Hey wrote:

> Dale, is the firewall recommended even if I seldom leave the computer 
> on if I am not working with it?  If the browser and e-mail 
> applications are not booted, can the computer still be penetrated?    
> Jerry
>
>

Jerry, the typical time between connecting to the net and getting hack 
attempts is in the range of minutes.  A newly installed and unpatched 
Windows box will typical be owned in less than 5.  Most of the attacks 
are trying to set your machine up as a 'zombie' that the hacker can 
control remotely to attack other computers.

A central tenent of security is to take away all rights to access that 
are not explicitly needed.  A hardware firewall implements this rule 
nicely, in that the exposed system doesn't even have the ability to do 
most things a general personal computer can do.  You can't break 
something that isn't there.  The software firewall, while better than 
nothing, makes things a lot 'muckier'.  The hackers can break into an 
unrelated piece of code to get where they want you to be (bent over).

Personally, I think it a crime that the network providers don't include 
a simple firewall, caching DNS, and NAT DHCP server in the modems they 
provide.  It'd cost them less than $10 to include it in the same box, 
and I'd gladly pay an extra $40 upfront to not have the multple wire and 
wall-warts all over the place.  But I guess that would cut into their 
'in-home networking' business.

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