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Technology Stocks : Covad Communications - COVD -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert T. Miller who wrote (175)	7/14/1999 2:18:00 PM
From: red_dog	Respond to of 10485

If you keep sharing turned off you only allow yourself a 10% chance of anything happening. Net sharing should always be off unless you have made a network in your home. Regards Rg A good place to go the link below zdnet.com

To: Robert T. Miller who wrote (175)	7/14/1999 4:19:00 PM
From: Larry Dambra	Respond to of 10485

Robert, Well, there is one other item that comes into play. All of the data transmitted by the users in your neighborhood is on the cable. A really smart hacker could probably snoop all of these packets. i.e. the kid next door watching what sites you surf. This is different with DSL, because only data intended for the IP addresses serviced by your router are sent from the DSLAM over your connection to your facility. Now, I have heard that the cable modem companies are working on this security issue, but I don't know anything firsthand. Certainly they could encrypt all of the packets, and then the decrypyt would only work for the packets intended for a specific user. A really good hacker can get into most any computer connected to the Internet, if it has not been adequately protected. This is irrespective of the connection, dial-up, frame relay, DSL, cable modem, or you name it. The router/firewall idea you suggest could be applied to a home network connected through a cable modem a couple of ways. One, would be to buy a router (expensive, and you have to know how to configure ti), and isolate your home LAN from the cable modem. A cheaper way would be to use two network interface cards (nics) in the computer that connects to the cable modem in combination with proxy server software. Nothing in any of my posts should really be construed to say cable modems bad, DSL good. It's just that the two mediums both have pros and cons. With DSL, you have to live within 16K feet of a CO and have a copper pair available to use, not so with cable modems. In many areas of the country you get cable downstream and dial-up upstream, not a very pleasant option because you still tie up your phone line. Right now cable seems to be cheaper and available in more areas, but from my perspective it doesn't stand up very well for business use. Hope that helps, Larry