On 2009-08-08, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@arcor.de> wrote: > On 08/08/2009 05:29 AM, Dale wrote: > >> I had thought about picking up a Linksys router and putting it >> between my desktop and the modem. > > Your modem is probably a router anyway.
Almost certainly (at least in the US). DSL modems with Ethernet interfaces almost always are routers/firewalls (and have been since way back when). It used to be common for Cable modems to be bridges, but that seems to be getting less common. > Furthermore, right now you're accessing the internet without > any form of protection anyway. If you're with dial-up, that > means you're connected directly to the internet. And don't > forget this is Linux, not Windows. > > Even without a firewall, remote break-in is highly improbable, > especially since you're not running any Apache or MySQL > servers on your machine (at least I assume you don't.) That's what I thought back when I was using dialup on a Linux box that didn't have any servers running. Then one day I got root-kitted. IMO, safely attaching a Linux machine directly to the Internet takes a fair bit of skill and lot of diligence. Safely attaching a Windows machine directly to the Internet is at least an order of magnitude more difficult. -- Grant
