I am going to be moving into an area with Time Warner’s Road Runner cable modem service. Since i am stuck with this crappy 288 modem right now, I have a few questions about cable modems - this is uncharted territory for me.
Where do install the ethernet card for the connection - can I just use one of my open slots?
I hear that you shouldn’t turn your computer off while connected - the cable company gets rather upset…true??
I am concerned about security - I hear these connections are susceptible to hacker attacks - are there firewall type programs available?
I also hear that your neighbors can slow down your connections if everybody is connected at once…true?
Also, web site usage is tracked - if a person downloads lots of illegal MP3s or porn or somthing the cable company has a record of it…true?
I am only an egg in these matters, so any help you give will be appreciated!
You can probably install it in any open slot. Ask your cable company if you need to get a special card (not likely) or if the service comes with an ethernet card.
You can turn it off while connected. It might be slightly better if there is a way to turn off the connection to turn it off. but it should cause no problems as long as the network is done correctly. (They would really need to fuck up to make it a problem)
Yes. But it’s so much faster than your present connection and you are hardly ever able to max out your connection that you’ll probably never notice.
They can if they really wanted to but it would involve a lot of work to log exactly what you were doing. Unless it uses a proxy server…They make it really easy to track stuff like that. My school for example tracks how much is up/downloaded by IP address.
I agree with the headless bovine. I just wanted to point out that there are two different types of expansion slots: PCI and ISA. PCI is generally faster (but not so much that you’ll really notice usually), but the important thing to know is what type of open slot you have.
Open up the case and look at the the motherboard. PCI slots are smaller and usually white or light tan. ISA are longer and usually black or dark brown.
If I can ask a bit more about security… I too am shedding the shackles of my regular modem. Having just built my computer, I am left with my old box. It has an old QDI motherboard, a small hard drive, video (though only one monitor between the two computers) and a floppy. The processor is a Cyrix 6X86-166. I once lost everything I had to a virus, so I am a wee bit paranoid about leaving my system open to the roving, bored, fifteen-year-old. My question then, what would it take to use my old system as a firewall? I don’t mind spending a few extra dollars for an additional card, but don’t think I want to get involved in upgrading my op system to NT (I’m running Win98 right now). Any suggestions? Thanks.
First off you’d need to get a second ethernet card for the firewall machine. Win98 should be able to handle it with some work although if there are lots of cards already in the system you could easily run out of IRQs. You’ll then need to connect one of these cards to the internet and one to the second computer via a hub or crossover cable.
Second you’d want to get a proxy server/firewall program. Sygate and Wingate are two that come to mind.
That would get you a system that is hard enough to withstand a casual attack. If you feel you need more check out the websites I mentioned in my first post as well as www.securityfocus.com , www.l0pht.com and www.antionline.com .
They have a really funny DSL commercial lately playing in California. It shows neighbors doing things like cutting neighbors phone lines, turning the hose in their car cause they are all on cable modems & they have to share the speed so the speed drops so much. So they try to get people to buy DSL.
It’s pretty funny. Right now the phone comp is offering DSL for $39 month, free modem & installation.
Couple of things to look at. First off, don’t spend the money to upgrade to NT. It doesn’t come with any sort of firewalling package. You’d have to buy something and add it on. Linux is either free or really cheap, depending on how you get it, and comes with a package called IPCHAINS, which is a packet filtering firewall. Linux will run on any ibm compatible computer down to a 386. It’s even possible to get a package designed to do ONLY firewalling and proxying, that will boot and run from a single floppy disk. It has just the bare minimum files needed to run a firewall and internet gateway, so you don’t even really need a hard drive. (I forget the name…if any of you guys know what I’m talking about, please chime in)
As for a monitor, you don’t really need one, once you get the initial setup done. My server machine doesn’t have a monitor, keyboard, or mouse connected. Only 2 network cards (one to the hub, one to the DSL modem) and hasn’t needed to be rebooted for the last 3 weeks. (that’s actually a really LOW uptime for Linux)
And yes, there can be noticeable slowdowns when your neighbors are all using the system at once. ADSL eliminates this problem, but gives you the added problem of REALLY slow upload speed (I have 1.6mbps download, and 90kbps upload. yuck).
Who the hell are you calling crazy?
You wouldn’t know crazy if Charles Manson was
eating Fruit Loops on your front porch!
I’ve got the very service you’re asking about, and I love it. (The phone company wasn’t responsive to my request for high-speed access soon enough.) I can only speak from my own experience: (1) They installed my ethernet card by opening up my computer and putting it in an empty slot. (2) You can turn off your computer any time you want…they ask that you don’t turn off their modem (cable connection), however. (3)I was told firewall type programs are not available, but Headless Cow probably knows more about them than I do. (4)I don’t know about the neighbor problem. I downloaded something that was shown to take 6+ minutes with a 28.8K modem from a busy website (Amazon.com). It took ** TEN SECONDS!!! ** (5)I assume the cable company can keep a record of any/everything I do…but I might bore them to tears.
A ship in the harbor is safe, but that isn’t what a ship is built for.
PEOPLE!!! PLEASE!!! There are so many millions of people on the little ol’ net, doing so many millions of things. A virus, yes. But a hacker, hacking YOU? Not damn likely. No self respecting (or, possibly, loathing) hacker gives two shits about you. Worry about things that matter! Ugh, you guys sound like my mom, worrying about using her card on the net.
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
Uh, actually you’re wrong here. What people do is to scan whole blocks of IP addresses looking for particular weaknesses. Once they find computers having those weaknesses, they log them into a database, to be traded or used however they will. One common use is being pressed into service for the DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial of Service) that you’ve been reading about in the papers recently.
What happens is you take control of a bunch of computers all over the country/world that you know have a weakness that will give you root access, and make each of them flood somebody’s network.
Anyway, the bottom line is you DO need to make your computer secure. Hackers aren’t looking for you, but you will almost certainly get scanned within the first week of having a permanent connection. And if you don’t make an effort to be secure, you could be used in an attack. Or, some kid could use your computer to store his porn, so his mom won’t find it on his own computer. You never know.
Oh, what’s that? So now you say life sucks?
Well 99% of it’s what you make of it…
So if your life sucks, YOU suck!
A firewall can be a handy thing, but it’s not really needed.
About all that can be done to a win95/98 computer is crash it, it generally doesn’t listen for file transfers or anything, so it’s not like someone could send you a virus or otherwise take over your computer. And if they did send a file through email or ICQ and it did infect you, a firewall wouldn’t stop it.
If you want to stop viruses, get a virus scanner.
A windows machine doesn’t really need a firewall, but if you want one, the best, as recommended by a few magazines is BlackIce. Nice and easy, and it hides everything you don’t want shown, in some cases your computer isn’t even visible to a hacker. http://advice.networkice.com/Products/BlackICE/blackice%20defender.htm
If you try to run a Linux box without understanding it, you open yourself to more problems because you give the attacker a more capable target, one worth working on. Your win98 machine is useless to them, but a nice Linux box on a fast connect, that’s a good find. If you don’t have to time to secure it by turning off the services you don’t need, you just make your whole site a juicier target, and if they get into your firewall and you have file sharing enabled, then they get access to your win98 box too…
I downloaded Zone Alarm today (I just got a new cable modem). It seemed to be working fine. Then I closed Internet Explorer, and when I tried to get back on, it said that Zone Alarm was blocking my access to the protocol server. My computer froze and I couldn’t do anything internet-related until I uninstalled Zone Alarm. I e-mailed Zone Labs, but can any of you more knowledgeable people tell what I did wrong, if anything?
In the meantime, when I’m not using the computer, is it safest to turn off the computer, unplug the modem from the computer, unplug the modem from the cable jack, or none of the above? The computer guy who installed the modem said that not being continuously connected would be security protection enough. Should I even bother trying again with a firewall?
If you are concerned with security, just unplug the network cable from the back of your computer when you are not using it. Firewall is not really nessecary, and unless you are running something like linux on your machine it will require 3rd party software. ConcealPC Firewall is an excellent software package for this. Firewalls can limit you though, and unplugging the modem will provide you ample security. Without getting into it too much, basically depending on how you set a firewall, you will notice yourself not being able to play online games and such because it filters out thier packets. Bummer.
God WAS my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and i had to eat him.
Two solutions, one easy and slightly expensive, one hard (unless one is a techie-type) and cheap (unless one has no or limited spare computer parts lying around.
Easy and mildly expensive:
Linksys has a new box which is a Cable/DSL router/firewall and 4 port 10/100 switch. Can be had for about $150 - $175 (hit Zones.com, buy.com, or similar and do a search on “linksys router” [minus quotes]). This box goes between your cable or DSL modem and your computer(s). Voila! Instant SOHO network. You can plug up to four computers directly into this box, and more if you uplink from the switch ports into hubs. The box does automatic NAT, so your whole network uses only one IP address to communicate with the world, and it includes firewall features to help keep your computers secure.
The less expensive (for me) path was to build a computer out of leftover spare parts (I had to bum an old case from a friend, but I had everything else), with two NICs in it, and run routing/firewall software on it. The box I built does all the same things the Linksys box does, but it essentially cost me nothing, since I had the parts already. Once the DSL line was in, it took an afternoon to get my network running.
It’s up to you. I’m thinking of buying the Linksys thingy myself, even though I already have a solution, because it would free up a box for other projects. I need to build a mail server next.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
Phouchg: You might check in the news groups for feedback about the service Time is providing in your area. Service varies widely for the same company in different areas.
Linux is a nice alternative router but there is a learning curve to deal with it. You can pick up Linux 5.2 or 6.0 for two bucks so its a cheap out. If your really pressed for space I think the Slackware version would probably be the one to go with. If your not up for that then your old machine with routing sw would better or a packaged router like Jo3sh mentioned is an easy out.
Jo3sh did you use free routing sw? What are the prices of routing sw packages? Are any free + worthwhile trustworthy packages?
routed is free (Included with all Linux distros that I’m aware of) and from what I hear, very reliable. Of course, all the routing I do is very basic, so I don’t know much about it.
Well, yes… there are some advantages to getting hacked.
Whitenight is way off base… the program that was used in the shutdowns a month or so ago has a win95 version out now. BackOrifice has bee around for a long time now, and can give someone complete access to your machine. There are plenty of ways to foul up windows users… but yes, Linux is just as vulnerable if not set up right.
I’ll add my voice in support of ZoneAlarm. Only thing I could ask for that they don’t have is something that WinNukes anyone who tries to access a closed port. But that’s a trivial matter…
http://www.madpoet.com
“I never meant to hurt you,” you said
And buried yourself in lies instead.
Next time I would rather be slain
Than forced to bear your mercy again
If you really want to kill a Windows user who uses WIn 95/98 then just set up a webserver that serves and page with theis redirect on any port you want closed. It can’t crash Win2k or any other OS though so it opens more holes than it screws up. file:///con/con If I typed that right it will crash any Win 95/98 user’s computer who clicks it.
I have a cable modem, and I wouldn’t go back. I d-lded Netscape ( 18.something MB ) in less that 2 minutes in the middle of the night! ( very low line useage- you can tell when it gets crowded, and you get frustrated until you realize you are complaining about speeds that are 2 or 3 times faster than phone lines.) I use Zone Alarm and have had no problems. I’m not sure it is really necessary, but I figure why take chances?
