Basic Networking Questions

Factual Questions
1

Hi, forgive my ignorance on this particular topic…

If I have two (Win XP) PCs plugged into a router, sharing an internet connection, are they “networked?” In specifically what sense?

Are their respective hard drives visible to each other by default or otherwise, if you don’t set up a network drive?

Can a user at one PC access information stored on the other PC, or set up access, without physical access to the 2nd PC?

Is there a reliable way to make sure that this is not the case?

One PC is pretty much public, so I want to get a clear idea about if or how much the other PC is exposed to other peoples’ foibles, nosiness, etc.

Thanks!

2

  1. Yes, in the sense that they are on the same network. (The network provided by your router specifically.)

  2. Not by default, but nothing guarantees somebody hasn’t already done this. So check your settings.

  3. Not by default, but they could if somebody had installed some remote management software on the 2nd PC. So check that there isn’t any.

  4. See 2 and 3. :slight_smile:

3

yes

Not really sure what you’re looking for here, do I have choices? (ETA, I suppose it would be Peer to Peer as opposed to Ad-Hoc IIRC, Ethernet as opposed to Token Ring)

By default, no. It’ll take a little fuzting around often times some hair pulling to make everything visible to everything…OTOH, some people have great luck and get it all set up in a matter of minutes. It all depends on the exact flavor of Windows you have and sometimes the difference between one computer and the other come into play.

No. In order to set one computer up to have access gained to it, you need to physically be at it.

You know how sometimes you’re doing something and the computer goes DING, the screen goes gray and you have to okay something before you can continue. The “Hi I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” commercials made fun of it. Yeah, don’t turn that off. That’s what’s keeping you protected.

ETA I see freido mentioned remote desktop software. When that DING pop up box (I really can’t remember what it’s called) pops up, IME, it’ll halt remote desktop software and wait for someone, physically sitting at the computer, to hit ok.

4

Okay, moderately reassuring, thanks.

[P.S. I know that thing. UAC, right? But, it’s a Vista thing. :wink: ]

5

Yes. They will share a common TCPIP subnet

By default, the machines will be visible to each other using the NET VIEW command, and in Explorer. Someone at one machine will be able to try to access the default shares of the other machine (c$, admin$, etc), but will not succeed if proper security is in place.

This is not particularly difficult but you do need to be careful and thorough. You need to think about what you want the public machine to do. You need to read up about policies and profiles and really lock the public machine down to just what you need it to do. Security should be first and foremost in your mind. The firewall on the private machine should absolutely block communication from the public one. Also look at Microsoft Steady State to periodically reset the machine. Physically, I suggest that you have only the keyboard, mouse, and display accessible - no DVD drive, no USB ports. If your router is capable, I suggest you put the public machine on its own private network. And don’t forget security on the router.