At 03:10 PM 4/22/00 -0400, Mazjlin wrote:
>
>Late p.s. - If you are as concerned/protective/paranoid/whatever
>then you should go to http://www.grc.com and get his optout.exe.
>
FWIW, I just finished checking out the site, and it's very interesting..
you can ask it to probe your own computer and tell you how much damage it
could have done. I'm already running a shield called "ZoneAlarm" and was
curious to see what would happen. After a long series of attempts it
reported that all my ports are in "Stealth" mode and added the following
message:
<< If all of the tested ports were shown to have stealth status, then for
all intents and purposes your computer doesn't exist to scanners on the
Internet!
It means that either your computer is turned off or disconnected from the
Net (which seems unlikely since you must be using it right now!) or an
effective stealth firewall is blocking all unauthorized external contact
with your computer. This means that it is completely opaque to random scans
and direct assault. Even if this machine had previously been scanned and
logged by a would-be intruder, a methodical return to this IP address will
lead any attacker to believe that your machine is turned off, disconnected,
or no longer exists. You couldn't ask for anything better. >>
The site specifically recommends "ZoneAlarm2", which can be downloaded
free. It was no trouble and I certainly feel better now that it's repelled
a direct assault, even an authorized one.
--Don Marshall
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