Re: Linksys router as Firewall

From: Robert de Brus (de_brus_at_h)
Date: 07/18/03 

Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 19:10:15 +1000

X-No-Archive: Yes

In news:rgcfhvkbgqeeo4k3oaiaf6sfchoe2tt54s@4ax.com,
IOStorm <noemail@noemail.net> typed
|| On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 12:39:09 GMT, Leythos <void@nowhere.com> wrote:
||
||| In article <iklchvcvtqf2a378255jvdcovtn5bri3fp@4ax.com>,
||| noemail@noemail.net says...
|||| On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 02:50:23 GMT, "mhicaoidh"
|||| <mhic_aoidh@hotNïXmailSPäM.com> wrote:
||||
||||| Taking a moment's reflection, IOStorm mused:
||||||
|||||| You might be confused about the definition of the term firewall.
|||||
||||| In a loose definition, I suppose you could call NAT a firewall.
||||| However, the firewall effect is a by-product of how a NAT router
||||| works. Routers are not anywhere near firewalls in terms of being
||||| able to control specific packets and ports. If in response to an
||||| out-bound packet, the router will let anything and everything
||||| through. You can play a bit with Port Forwarding, Triggering,
||||| and the like ... but a router alone is still not a firewall by
||||| any industry standard.
||||
|||| A firewall is a device or software between the local system and the
|||| internet, period.
|||
||| I can see that you've never worked in a position that required any
||| knowledge of security. A firewall is defined as follows:
||
|| I can see you have never given the slightest bit of thought to the
|| actual meaning and history of the term. A firewall is a device or
|| software between the local system and the internet, period.

ahem. You mentioned the history. Do you have your own theory on this?

The term firewall comes from the automotive industry. It's built into the
car between the engine bay and the driver's compartment to stop the driver
getting burned in the case of an engine fire.

Your definition could mean the dashboard, or the steering wheel, of the pack
of smokes *on* the dashboard, simply because these are things that are
between the driver and the engine bay.

Clearly this is a ridiculous definition.

A firewall *does* sit between the local system and the internet, but to what
ends? It actually has a job, to protect the local system from anything on
the internet having unsolicited access to that local system.

||
|| As time goes by, more and more features and concepts are integrated
|| into the concept. But they are *processes* for implementing a
|| firewall and controlling the traffic, not the definition of a
|| firewall.

Everything evolves, as I'm sure you will soon, but the firewall already had
a job to do, that's *why* it was invented. It's simply the means by which
this job is *done* that has evolved, not the concept. 

---
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