ON-line safety quiz.

[bindeweede]

Simple, but some people might not get 10/10.

http://www.getsafeonline.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1446

[chaggle]

10 but I didn't know the bit about the golden padlock

[skbuncks]

10/10 for me too

skb

[asthmatic camel]

10/10 but I'm paranoid. Isn't it odd that many wireless routers are shipped with nifty firewall capabilities turned off by default?

[Matt]

10/10 but I'm paranoid. Isn't it odd that many wireless routers are shipped with nifty firewall capabilities turned off by default?

I find nothing odd about the way that wireless routers are shipped.

By default most use port address translation which allows the end user to create a connection to the outside world but hosts elsewhere on the internet will not be able to initiate a connection to one of your home computers without you specifically configuring it access.

That's what a simple firewall does.

Wh










































































ere the security of the standard wireless router falls down is that the SSID broadcast is not disabled, an



















































































encryption key is not set and MAC address filtering is not configured. However MAC filtering would make it impossible for you to connect that first device wirelessly so that you could configure that and other options. Not a problem if you can connect to your router through a wired connection but if you're buying a wireless router for use with a wireless only platform like the mac air the you're shit out of luck. The router coiuld conceivably ship with default ssid and wep key which would make it harder but not impossible to make that initiial connection but that would lead to more support calls and may even lead to more people leaving these
defaults as they are rather than changing ssid and ramping up the encryption levels with a new key

[asthmatic camel]

Err, well, I think that's what I meant.

[Matt]

Err, well, I think that's what I meant.

My blackberry seems to have done something quite odd to that post of mine.

Language is a fluid thing I guess. For me a firewall is a quite specific technical term which doesn't encompass those other security measures. If you want to use the word firewall where I'd use the word security then maybe that's just language evolving. However when technical issues are being discussed there's a somewhat stronger argument for the prescriptivist approach. Anyway as I said there are good reasons that these don't come preconfigured..

[asthmatic camel]

I'm no expert, but Virgin recently sent me a new router which had ping blocking disabled by default, (amongst other things.) I thought that was a fairly basic function of a firewall, but may well be wrong.

[Matt]

I'm no expert, but Virgin recently sent me a new router which had ping blocking disabled by default, (amongst other things.) I thought that was a fairly basic function of a firewall, but may well be wrong.

You certianly can disallow ICMP responses from your router, computer or firewall. But why one earth would you want to?

[asthmatic camel]

You certianly can disallow ICMP responses from your router, computer or firewall. But why one earth would you want to?

Because Steve Gibson told me to. Why wouldn't I want to?

[Matt]

Because Steve Gibson told me to. Why wouldn't I want to?

Ping is a diagnostic tool. If you disable ICMP echo requests then you disable you own ability to check if your router is up. (or the helpdesk's ability to check this)

Steve Gibson is in the business of hyping security risks in order to sell a service. Allowing ping is unliekly to cause harm.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Should I disable pong on my colecovision?

[polomint38]

My blackberry seems to have done something quite odd to that post of mine.

Any excuse to mention your posh phone, I have a cheap Samsung it does the job of phoning and texting.

Should I disable pong on my colecovision?

I had to look up colecovision, I don't remember it , around that time I was using my trusty ZX Spectrum.

What computers/consoles where being used by other Skeptoids in 1982 , I know we'll get some "I wasn't even born" replies, don't be smug you will get old one day.

[chaggle]

Any excuse to mention your posh phone, I have a cheap Samsung it does the job of phoning and texting.



I had to look up colecovision, I don't remember it , around that time I was using my trusty ZX Spectrum.

What computers/consoles where being used by other Skeptoids in 1982 , I know we'll get some "I wasn't even born" replies, don't be smug you will get old one day.

I was programming these things

[Matt]

What computers/consoles where being used by other Skeptoids in 1982 , I know we'll get some "I wasn't even born" replies, don't be smug you will get old one day.

1982, That was the year we got a BBC Micro Model B