On Sunday 22 February 2004 7:10 am, ec wrote: > Let me explain the 'paranoia' that she has. First, she > also has a windoze 98 machine that will be online, and > it contains some (to her) very important stuff. She is > writing a novel on it and doesn't want that info to > somehow be copied by a hacker. And two, years ago, > someone broke into another machine and wiped about two > years work out as it wasn't secured enough. > > Probably, since I didn't know about the NAT (nor > understand that term) firewall already there, I > probably will hook up the net to that avoiding messing > with smoothwall initially. That is, IF I can disable > the wireless probing into it. How do you do that? First off with your old dial up account you did not have NAT as you were not behind a router! There are several ways to become secure with your wireless but keep in mind to become 100% secure you will have to lose the connectivity to the net. After the router is connected you have to log in to the router via http://the address. Then you may disable wireless altogether or you can change some simple settings. First disable ssid broadcasting. This tells the world who you are! 2nd set encryption. 128bit is best but speed will be sacraficed. I personally use 64 bit, and am happy, remember they can crack 128 bit encryption now, just takes a bit longer, however the loose pacets will be long dead before they crack them. 3rd tell the router "who" is allowed to connet to the router via wireless. This is done by telling the router what MAC addresses are valid. Once this is done you are set! I would use zone alarm fire wall for windows 98 and you can get it free via download. Do a google search for it, I don't remember the address. After the firewall is installed, turn off most of the incoming tcp, udp, icmp and NetBios services. Use common sense, and read the details of the service or you will lose connectivity. Also if not already installed I would get anti-virus installed and make sure you protect incoming and outgoing email automaticly. This is not a rocket science, just go slowly and make small changes. If you make an error, it is easy to then go back and repair. Unfortunately with win98 there are many vulnerabilities, so I would also consider www.updates.microsoft.com to get all the updates available. > -- 11:28am up 67 days 18:40, 2 users, load average: 0.20, 0.09, 0.03 Linux linux 2.4.20-4GB #1 Mon Mar 17 17:54:44 UTC 2003 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss