Re: Recurrent question

On 11 Dec 2005 09:55:03 +0100, Volker Birk <bumens@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Sla#s <phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > Just use the Windows-Firewall, and that's it.
>> Windows Firewall only blocks incoming, it does not block outgoing.
>
>Yes, and it's completely useless to try to block "outgoing", as you
>can read here in my postings, together with the reasons for this and
>some proofs.
>
>Yours,
>VB.

By this reasoning an anti-virus program would be completely useless
because it can't stop all viral infections.

I can see your point though. There is a lot of code out there for
defeating personal firewalls. But I think people use them for what
they can do rather than what they can't do, because most of the time
they do the job in hand. They are useful on laptops for example.

I think one of the best uses for a rules based personal firewall is to
interactively teach users what is happening on their computers, and
tell them when it is happening. If you delete all the default rules
and start from scratch, you soon build up a picture of the ports in
use on your system, and the processes that use them. I know this
information can be gathered in other ways, but personal firewalls
bring it all together and allow detailed logging.

Personal firewalls are popular. I think people will continue to use
them no matter how insecure they are, or how many insecurities they
add to the system, purely because they like them. Kerio 2.1.5 is a
good example of that. It's easily bypassed using fragrouter, but some
people don't seem to mind because it's unlikely to happen to them.

Ric

WARNING: Prolonged use of personal firewalls can lead to use of harder
tools like Ethereal.
.

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