Security w/ Cable Modem

Factual Questions
1

I’ve had a cable modem for 2 months now. I use Zone Alarm as a firewall. I noticed my log file for blocking internet access to my pc is about 96 pages long. Does that mean that there have been 96 pages worth of attempts to get on my pc from the outside? I do use Napster and it is usually up when my computer is running as I like to do my fair share of swapping. Are those requests from other Napster users or are there 96 pages worth of users out there interested in what is on my pc?

When I used dial up I had no firewall and used AOL and would leave myself online for days at a time. Was my computer that vulnerable?

2

You were very vulnerable. I can’t answer your question about Zone Alarm, but I can tell you what I did with my cable modem. I hooked my modem to my FreeBSD box and set up all the security there. I then hooked a Windows box to a second network card in the BSD machine and specified the BSD box as my default router. I set up a firewall on the Unix side and that kept me safe. I personally don’t trust anything that says it can secure my Windows box. I don’t believe it can be done. :slight_smile: