Re: hardware firewalls

From: Anonymous (me_at_me.com)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 16:45:33 +0000 (UTC)

Livewire <livewire_100@N.O.S.P.A.M.hotmail.com> wrote in
news:MPG.1bb3b4eb92959dbb98971a@news.eclipse.co.uk:

> How do hardware firewalls work?
>
> I can see how incoming traffic can be blocked, as with NAT on a router.
> But how can outgoing traffic be handled effectively, given that
> decisions need to be made about what to allow and block?
>
I assume you are talking about controlling which applications can
communicate.

Hardware firewalls can filter outbound traffic by blocking/permitting
access to certain ports or IP addresses thereby controlling which services
users can access but they cannot filter applications. For example, it
could not block you from using Internet Explorer as your web browser, and
force all users to use Mozilla Firefox instead. Only client side firewalls
can offer application based filtering.

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