         |
 |
Personal firewalls
One of the first things learned from the early cable modem world was that
the security in the system was non-existent. It is tantamount to
connecting your PC into a LAN hub, and that means that in the
world of IP, an 8 year old down the street on the same LAN segment
can read your email. The Powers That Be actually like this state
of affairs, since it makes it dead easy for Big Brother to spy on
what’s going on, because if you give the public any freedom to
communicate, they will use it. And some messages may say some less
than complimentary things about the government in power. Why
don’t either Hotmail or Yahoo use SSL for web-based message
transactions, I wonder..? In fact, catch one Al Qaeda terrorist sending his mum an email message
asking her to send him a new pair of socks for Ramadan, and
that’s all the justification the security forces will need to
propose that every packet of IP that traverses the UK can be
opened and examined for any evidence of miscreance. The best one can do is use a personal firewall package on any PC attached
to a cable or direct DSL connection, and being a fan of the
Mijenix/OnTrack utility suites of long standing, I gave their
latest “all in one” suite a go. It is one behemoth of an
install, and clearly gets right deep down inside the system with
its various tools and virus checkers, and the personal firewall
analysis telling me what was going in and out of the network
connection soon had me downloading a spyware remover. (Resist
installing Gator, you lot). SystemSuite 4.0 includes the NetDefense firewall, which does a thorough
job of inspection, and as usual, the most unnerving news from the
firewall is what is leaving your PC, not necessarily what is being
probed. Much the same point is made about security risks in any
organisation - when it comes to spilling the corporate beans,
Doris in accounts can make the blackest of hats seem like an
amateur. At home, I’m more concerned about what Mr Gates and his software can do
to my data than what someone with nothing better to do than probe
me for open mail gateways - so the rest of the software suite is
designed to prevent (actually, let’s be honest – delay the
inevitable and recover the remnants). Overall, System Suite is the kitchen sink of PC utilities, including the
wonderful PowerDesk explorer and is a bargain at $54 for the downloaded edition. One of the many handy tools
is the intriguingly named “size manager” which displays and
analyses exactly where that 100Gbyte disk went. How on earth can I
have 16Gbyte tied up archiving broken Outlook files..? SystemSuite is not for the unwary, especially
when going into some of the recovery/repair areas, and there will
inevitably some areas where a few surprises may be in store, but
overall it is well worth the price of admission – read more at
www.ontrack.com |