Re: OT: Zone Alarm

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

At one remote location I go to regularly, I am able to
make use of their wireless router that has some sort
of firewall built-in, as many of them do these days.
SSID broadcast is turned off, and I communicate with
their router via WPA-2 (AES). Hopefully that is
sufficient. It is not a high density area. Rather, I
was thinking more in terms of the "free wi-fi
wherever" type of situation.

But I'm amazed at how wide open things are, in most
urban areas. Most people have no idea, or don't care.
 I was just briefly trying to ascertain the chipset
being used in one of these external NIC sticks,
querying it with PCI-32.Exe. (Forget it: doesn't seem
to peer inside of attached USB devices. I guess you'd
need something else.) Just because it was attached, I
immediately saw about 8 nearby routers, and AVG
started to auto-download its updates before I could
react, courtesy of a free ride on someone's 24/7
unprotected wifi. (I'm strictly wired at home, and
don't own a wireless router.)

All of these routers were broadcasting their names
(which I won't quote here, as some are borderline or
not-so-borderline obscene.) Think about this -- and
not just the "junior hacker gets into your system with
ill intent" aspect. A semi-skilled malefactor could
do all sorts of nefarious things that could have the
FBI knocking on that router-owner's door, rather than
that of the actual perpetrator.

> If you cannot find Vers. 3.7.193, I can send you a
> copy (next
> Tues, when I'm in the DSL equipped office).

Thanks for the offer, Patricia. I think most of the
older versions can be found at OLDAPPS.Com.


 Jordan