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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (5522)	10/9/1999 2:26:00 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Frank, Is it DSL, which conforms to Internet norms? Or, is it ICQ and NetMeeting which made some assumptions which were not well thought out? Perhaps someone more protocol savvy than present company could answer that. I'm most inclined to conclude that the conflicts are simply viewed thusly: "Sometimes you go for results and instead you get consequences." I am happy to report that I have made some changes to the puter here, i.e. Win98SE and Hughes DPC2.1.0, and all the flakiness has disappeared from the satellite experience. Of course, with perfect timing, I am now regularly getting disconnected from the landline ISP. Have yet to sort out if this is an ISP or LEC issue. All I can say is that five nines is just a dream out here in the puckerbrush. Best, Ray

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (5522)	10/9/1999 1:26:00 PM
From: D. Newberry	Respond to of 12823

<< Is it DSL, which conforms to Internet norms? Or, is it ICQ and NetMeeting which made some assumptions which were not well thought out? >> Hi Frank, The problem is that ICQ, Netmeeting, and AOL Instant Messenger do some non-standard things that create a security problem. As a result, most firewalls and routers with NAT, etc., won't pass this traffic. When the user brings up ICQ, for instance, the app opens a UDP port #2000 outgoing. ICQ then opens up all TCP incoming ports and listens for any incoming TCP sessions. This is a real security problem since the outside world can now initiate a TCP session to your PC. A firewall won't allow that, for obvious reasons, and NAT doesn't know where to translate the session too since it was initiated by an outside device, not an internal PC. That makes NAT a de facto firewall. If you use non-routable private IP addresses on your internal PCs, then the outside world cannot initiate a session directly to you. There are workarounds for the problem. Some Proxy servers, like Wingate, will allow you to set the NAT configuration so that any TCP sessions initiated by the outside will get transfered to a particular PC on your inside network. Obviously this makes that PC vulnerable, but the application will work. I wish AOL and Microsoft wouldn't create apps like this, although I can understand the logic behind doing it. These apps are popular because of the fact that others can set up sessions with you directly and in real time. This works great for real-time chats and conferencing. I had to address this problem when I got DSL, since I have multiple PCs in the house and the kids made it clear they must continue using ICQ. This same issue came up on the Intel thread, and I outlined my solution to the problem in response 89762. I basically isolated the ICQ app to one PC, which has the security problem, and I don't allow any sharing on the network between that PC and my other machines. So far I haven't been hacked. By the way, I enjoy your posts. I don't post often myself, since I rarely have the time, but I enjoy an occasional lurk nonetheless. Regards, DN