>AFAIK, they only have the DSL modem on their network hub. This acts as their firewall [mine works the same way]. <
Thanks, Mark. It sounds like they may be more vulnerable than they know, unless they are running some other software. DSL Modems and hubs don't really screen out anything. This is basically the kind of setting at home I was warned against. It sounds like each of their machines has a external IP address, meaning if I knew what it was I could see their machine from where I am right now. I know there is software one can use to see how many "hits" your machine is getting and my understanding is evil-doers put out probes to find machines unprotected and know how to exploit this. Hence the need for firewalls.
Anyway, I am going to be doing a lot of this over the next couple months so I'll share all my stumblings here for the amusement of others and post whatever solutions I find as well.
Thanks again for your help
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
