Author Topic: Firewall  (Read 14776 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline bob3160

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Probably Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 48523
  • 64 Years of Happiness
    • bob3160 Protecting Yourself, Your Computer and, Your Identity
Re: Firewall
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2006, 03:11:11 PM »
I'm also going to stop taking the antibiotics that have been fighting my chest infection.  It was irrational of my doctor to suggest that they could at least stop the infection getting any worse.

Are Microsoft moving into healthcare anytime soon?
What does this have to do with the firewall discussion ???
Free Security Seminar: https://bit.ly/bobg2023  -  Important: http://www.organdonor.gov/ -- My Web Site: http://bob3160.strikingly.com/ - Win 11 Pro v22H2 64bit, 16 Gig Ram, 1TB SSD, Avast Free 23.5.6066, How to Successfully Install Avast http://goo.gl/VLXdeRepair & Clean Install https://goo.gl/t7aJGq -- My Online Activity https://bit.ly/BobGInternet

Mastertech

  • Guest
Re: Firewall
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2006, 03:47:14 PM »
If i was to download another firewall like zone alarm would i have to uninstall the windows one?
No you can't but you can disable it. Now you need to ask why you are installing it. Because if you are trying to stop from getting hacked than Windows XP SP2's Firewall will do that. If you think it will stop you from getting infected, no more than Windows XP SP2's firewall. All it will do is provide better logging and more application control over what programs access the Internet, when and how. It will slow down your internet and PC performance.

The fact is everyone should use a Firewall and the XP SP2 Firewall is more than sufficient for the average user.

Offline FreewheelinFrank

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Ultra Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 4872
  • I'm a GNU
    • Don't Surf in the Nude!
Re: Firewall
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2006, 04:07:49 PM »
Quote
If i was to download another firewall like zone alarm would i have to uninstall the windows one?

No. Zone Alarm and most other firewalls will disable Windows firewall when installed.





If you install a firewall which doesn't automatically disable Windows firewall, the normal advice is to disable it yourself. In XP SP2 this is done from the security centre. In pre SP2 XP, the firewall is found here:

http://www.geocities.com/dontsurfinthenude/firetut.htm
     Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain     Don't Surf in the Nude Blog

Offline polonus

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Probably Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 33891
  • malware fighter
Re: Firewall
« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2006, 04:17:01 PM »
Hi malware fighters,

In a sense part of the discussion is true, not the part that you can do without outbound protection, but the assumption that a firewall offers the same sort of protection it did a couple of years ago. In that respect and only in that respect MasterTech has a point, but in a different way as he presents it.
There is a lot of things just passing beyond your firewall's radar, because it was not designed to block this, Whereas a good firewall protected against the majority of attacks a couple of years ago, to-day a large part of attacks circumvents the firewall or passes right through it. Content scanning of port 80 protects against
the majority of these kind of attacks. A good firewall could once ward off 95%
of all attacks , now a good 30% of malware vectors use a different way to infect.

Port 80, the main carrier port of all webtraffick is notorious in this
respect. Via the webmail interface an attack on the internal mail server
can be achieved. Inside a mail a weblink can be sent, where a click-through
can lead to a lot of trouble.
A good firewall is a must, but actually we have gone back to day 0 again to the days before firewalls were available.
Today whereas all sort of applications have a web interface for the future all sort of distributed applications based on web services will use port 80. (Now you know why you have the avast webshield installed inside your browser). Even p2p-ing programs that are not supported by firewall proxies have a fall-back option for the web protocol.
Craig Hicks-Frazer, Managing Director van Blue Coat, measures that 50 to 70%
of all the traffic for his clients runs via port 80, and that percentage is only growing.

Checking web traffic for dangerous and undesired content is more difficult
than scanning in-coming mail. Simple in-line scanning, where webcontent is
being examined directly, does not offer a good solution. It means that the user
sits waiting for the next screen all the time. Using content scanning on demand
(DrWeb's hyperlink scanning) is better. But when things fail, one even could
get a time-out of the application. It is also difficult to apply on a larger
scale in a commercial surroundings.

Caching appears to be the solution to these problems.
By saving all of the webcache (for all of the firm) and loading this even pro-actively, the scanner can perform on an acceptable scale. Even better so the web-cache can enhance performance as a whole and lower the bandwidth used.
First the cache is checked before new content is brought in, if that takes a
while the user is served up with "patience-page". According to Hicks-Frazer
this was the reason that user started clicking again and again, while the
background system was busy scanning so it almost collapsed under the
enormous load.

That is why Blue Coat as a vendor of web cache and proxy systems applications is
now heavily into web content scanning. Their port 80 Security Appliances
do mainly consist of a web cache together with a security engine, that looks
after the implementation of set policies for URL and MIME type filtering, virus
scanning and bandwidth management.

Scanning and filtering is done via the Internet Content Adaptation Protocol
(ICAP) intertwined with content scanners. Supported here are applications like
WebWasher, Finjan SurfinGate, SmartFilter van Secure Computing, Websense,
Symantec CarrierScan Server en TrendMicro InterScan Server.
Setting policies for port 80 scanners is like setting management interfaces of
firewall systems. It looks lite setting the rules for let us say Check Point
VPN-1/FireWall-1.

The protocols can be set for a user or for a group of users, the same as what
content can be approached, what content can be viewed and at what moment this
is allowed. So you can filter out abusive language, religious or fundamentalist
content, pr0n, but also sports and private stock, what could be allowed during
lunch hour could be a subject of debate. Then you could be free to do your
shopping, download your e-books etc. etc. So people would not linger on e-Bay.
For this reasonm time-outs and content limits could be implimented.

From a security point of view filtering outgoing content is much more interesting.
Sop instant messaging may be allowed on the firms Intranet but not on the
Internet. Sometimes only file-sharing is blocked, usb sharing is blocked,
and outgoing content is checked for certain terms to secure certain
documents or information to be leaked.

For the users everything should be as transparent as possible, first you get
a policy survey inside the browser, you have to agree with that before you
can go on the Internet. If you are in confict with the policy you will get
a pop-up. Easiest is to block this, but better to use a form of social
engineering seeing to it that applications of this sort are being counted,
and no-one want to be "top of the list". This works, the same as "all your
attempts are going to be logged". The management has to be shown only
general surveys, because full reports would take too much of their time.

How you implement these policies as a home-user is interesting to know,
I think a form of hips and layered protection with in-browser security will grant you a way of securing your machine.

polonus
Cybersecurity is more of an attitude than anything else. Avast Evangelists.

Use NoScript, a limited user account and a virtual machine and be safe(r)!

Offline FreewheelinFrank

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Ultra Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 4872
  • I'm a GNU
    • Don't Surf in the Nude!
Re: Firewall
« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2006, 04:34:05 PM »
Quote
The fact is everyone should use a Firewall and the XP SP2 Firewall is more than sufficient for the average user.

I guess it's a case of 'do as I say' not 'do as I do' as Mastertech is a Zone Alarm user:

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/tracker?user.id=42221

     Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain     Don't Surf in the Nude Blog

hlecter

  • Guest
Re: Firewall
« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2006, 04:45:33 PM »

The fact is everyone should use a Firewall and the XP SP2 Firewall is more than sufficient for the average user.

Not if you have got WGA NOTIFICATION tool on your machine and want to stop
it from calling home to Microsoft now and then. The average user, as you said,
will not be able to stop this calling home without ZA or another FW with outbound
protection.   ;D

Offline bob3160

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Probably Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 48523
  • 64 Years of Happiness
    • bob3160 Protecting Yourself, Your Computer and, Your Identity
Re: Firewall
« Reply #21 on: November 21, 2006, 05:22:51 PM »
Quote
The fact is everyone should use a Firewall and the XP SP2 Firewall is more than sufficient for the average user.

I guess it's a case of 'do as I say' not 'do as I do' as Mastertech is a Zone Alarm user:

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/tracker?user.id=42221


To me, all this proves is that he's a memeber of the ZA forum unless one of his post state
that he actually uses ZA.
I certeinly don't intend to read them all.

If you search for bob3160, you'll also find posts from me but, currently I'm not using ZA either.  :)
« Last Edit: November 21, 2006, 05:24:43 PM by bob3160 »
Free Security Seminar: https://bit.ly/bobg2023  -  Important: http://www.organdonor.gov/ -- My Web Site: http://bob3160.strikingly.com/ - Win 11 Pro v22H2 64bit, 16 Gig Ram, 1TB SSD, Avast Free 23.5.6066, How to Successfully Install Avast http://goo.gl/VLXdeRepair & Clean Install https://goo.gl/t7aJGq -- My Online Activity https://bit.ly/BobGInternet

Offline FreewheelinFrank

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Ultra Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 4872
  • I'm a GNU
    • Don't Surf in the Nude!
Re: Firewall
« Reply #22 on: November 21, 2006, 05:32:29 PM »
Quote
Regardless I am VERY concerned ZA is screwing up NTFS file system level issues. I want a Firewall not modifications to the core of the Operating System's File System.

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=Antivirus&message.id=12009#M12009

Despite coming her to tell us to use Windows firewall, Mastertech is a Zone Alarm firewall user.
     Bambleweeny 57 sub-meson brain     Don't Surf in the Nude Blog

Offline bob3160

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Probably Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 48523
  • 64 Years of Happiness
    • bob3160 Protecting Yourself, Your Computer and, Your Identity
Re: Firewall
« Reply #23 on: November 21, 2006, 07:08:40 PM »
FWF,
All that proves is that he's tested the program.
Something a lot of us on here do with lots of programs.
Guess he can answer it by himself.
Free Security Seminar: https://bit.ly/bobg2023  -  Important: http://www.organdonor.gov/ -- My Web Site: http://bob3160.strikingly.com/ - Win 11 Pro v22H2 64bit, 16 Gig Ram, 1TB SSD, Avast Free 23.5.6066, How to Successfully Install Avast http://goo.gl/VLXdeRepair & Clean Install https://goo.gl/t7aJGq -- My Online Activity https://bit.ly/BobGInternet

J J

  • Guest
Re: Firewall
« Reply #24 on: November 21, 2006, 11:49:17 PM »
Thanks for everyones views. i think i will download another firewall just to be on the safe side. i will also keep  the windows one.

neal62

  • Guest
Re: Firewall
« Reply #25 on: November 22, 2006, 12:50:40 AM »
Your welcome J J. But now, maybe you can see why I was glad I responded first to your question with the answer I did here in this post.All of these answers you got here have already been cussed and discussed before here in the forum. So, now you see that events and things do repeat themselves.  ;)

Offline OrangeCrate

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Advanced Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 798
Re: Firewall
« Reply #26 on: November 22, 2006, 11:36:06 AM »
I certainly don't intend to read them all.

That's O.K. Bob, I'll read them for you. It took me less than a minute to find his signature on one of his posts:

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=Antivirus&message.id=11999#M11999

Or, how about this one?

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=Antivirus&message.id=11998#M11998

You are right, that posting doesn't necessarily mean that the person is using the product now, but it doesn't take a great leap of faith to think that they were, at the time that they were posting on the forum.

Like you here, though you don't use their products anymore:

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=37480

Or here, (coincidentally in a conversation with me):

http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=inst&message.id=44297

I believe I would give this round to Frank, in his never ending battle with Mastertech. Can't wait for the next chapter...  ;D (F-u-n-n-y!)

However, I wholeheartedly agree with Neal. Every time one of them casts a fly, the other one rises to grab it (trout fishing terms).  :P
« Last Edit: November 22, 2006, 02:12:10 PM by OrangeCrate »

Offline OrangeCrate

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Advanced Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 798
Re: Firewall
« Reply #27 on: November 22, 2006, 12:32:42 PM »
i think i will download another firewall just to be on the safe side.

Though there are several fine products out there, I would highly recommend the Zone Alarm version in my signature. Since I installed it, it has blocked 42,934 intrusions, with 1394 of those being "high rated".

There are several comments on their forum, that this was the last best one. I tend to agree, particularly since it doesn't exhibit the vsmon problems of the newer versions.

If you want to try it, you can find the download here:

http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/information/znalm/zaReleaseHistory.html

I think you've made a wise decision.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2006, 02:08:16 PM by OrangeCrate »

Offline bob3160

  • Avast Überevangelist
  • Probably Bot
  • *****
  • Posts: 48523
  • 64 Years of Happiness
    • bob3160 Protecting Yourself, Your Computer and, Your Identity
Re: Firewall
« Reply #28 on: November 22, 2006, 03:18:33 PM »
Quote
I believe I would give this round to Frank, in his never ending battle with Mastertech. Can't wait for the next chapter...   (F-u-n-n-y!)
Hi OrangeCrate,
Unfortunately in this type of a battle, there aren't any winners.
What's even worse is that there needs to be a battle in the first place.
The forum and it's members are the losers each time one of these confrontations breaks out.
Free Security Seminar: https://bit.ly/bobg2023  -  Important: http://www.organdonor.gov/ -- My Web Site: http://bob3160.strikingly.com/ - Win 11 Pro v22H2 64bit, 16 Gig Ram, 1TB SSD, Avast Free 23.5.6066, How to Successfully Install Avast http://goo.gl/VLXdeRepair & Clean Install https://goo.gl/t7aJGq -- My Online Activity https://bit.ly/BobGInternet

Offline OrangeCrate

  • Avast Evangelist
  • Advanced Poster
  • ***
  • Posts: 798
Re: Firewall
« Reply #29 on: November 22, 2006, 04:33:32 PM »
[The forum and it's members are the losers each time one of these confrontations breaks out.

I absolutely agree with you. The comment you quoted was tongue in cheek. It was followed by the additional thought that referenced Neal's comment.

Mine:

I believe I would give this round to Frank, in his never ending battle with Mastertech. Can't wait for the next chapter...  ;D (F-u-n-n-y!)

However, I wholeheartedly agree with Neal. Every time one of them casts a fly, the other one rises to grab it (trout fishing terms).  :P

Neal's:

...All of these answers you got here have already been cussed and discussed before here in the forum. So, now you see that events and things do repeat themselves.  ;)

« Last Edit: November 22, 2006, 05:40:14 PM by OrangeCrate »