[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: i bought a walmart cheapie
From: |
Jean-David Beyer |
Subject: |
Re: i bought a walmart cheapie |
Date: |
Thu, 01 Jul 2004 09:50:26 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.2) Gecko/20040301 |
Theorem wrote:
:::::: I am very careful on my Windows box.
I personally do not think it is possible to be careful enough with
Windows that you can safely expose it to the Internet (give it a public
address).
I was talking to the chief Techie at my ISP about putting Windows XP Home
on one of my machines. After saying "Don't do it!" he told me of one of
their clients who installed it, and the first thing he did was dial up the
Internet to get all the Microsoft Updates. During the time he was
downloading those, a cracker took over his machine.
It was that techie that suggested firewalling it before even allowing it
to communicate with the Internet. And not the firewall that comes with it.
The only somewhat safe way to use Windows is on a private
address behind a suitably configured Unix firewall and to never ever run
Lookout Express or Internet Exploder. Even then, anti-virus software is
a must. Even then...
My firewall (on a Linux server) is set up using iptables so that my
Windows machines accept _no_ incoming messages except those in reply to
something I sent out.
Furthermore, the firewall will not allow the Windows machines to send
anything out except to Microsoft (needed just for updates), Intuit
(TurboTax for updates, and Quicken for updates and downloading data), and
American Express, and my broker (because Quicken uses these). And those
only to port 80.
So it is pretty difficult to infect my Windows machines, and even if you
do, you will be severely limited in what you can send out and to whom. And
any failures will be logged.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 09:40:00 up 3 days, 17:09, 3 users, load average: 0.06, 0.10, 0.14
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie,
Jean-David Beyer <=
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, JEDIDIAH, 2004/07/01
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, David Kastrup, 2004/07/02
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, The Ghost In The Machine, 2004/07/02
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, JEDIDIAH, 2004/07/02
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, Peter Köhlmann, 2004/07/03
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, JEDIDIAH, 2004/07/03
- Re: i bought a walmart cheapie, Peter Köhlmann, 2004/07/04