If you trust Steve Gibson and Shields Up..

[Wombat]

is the firewall actually good, or is grc just fooled?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/22509.html

[Gurm]

Steve is just a quack on this "vulnerability of Windows" thing. My machine has been "full stealth" to his, and all other, probes since I installed Windows 2000. I had to fiddle a bit with WinXP to get it as secure (damn MS and their "remote desktop sharing" protocols), but I don't use a software firewall at all - since I don't have any open ports to protect.

- Gurm

[Paddy]

Steve is just a quack on this "vulnerability of Windows" thing. My machine has been "full stealth" to his, and all other, probes since I installed Windows 2000. I had to fiddle a bit with WinXP to get it as secure (damn MS and their "remote desktop sharing" protocols), but I don't use a software firewall at all - since I don't have any open ports to protect.

How about writing up a quick guide? I for one would read it!

[The PIT]

How many ports are there thousands? I would love to know what ports I need and don't need on a simple home network using ics and a connection to the internet.
Come on Gurm you've got a job.

[The PIT]

Sorry forgot to mention if you fail Steve Gibsons firewall tests you've got problems.

[Gurm]

You can't trust the register, but in this particular case you can't trust Stevie boy either.

- Gurm

P.S. I'll see what I can do. It wasn't hard, really - just turn off all the damn services. There are a lot of them to ferret out though, I guess I can write it down as I'm doing this weekend's reinstall. Heh.

[The PIT]

Remember The Register is mainly a piss take.
The question I've got is that there are so many ports which ones do you need just to browse the web, ftp, download files other than using ftp download emails via Outlook and thats it.
One thing I noticed according to my software firewall theres a lot poeple of there with trojans accidently or purposely scanning away. So far when I try to trace the people doing this I always come up at a dead end which suggests these people aren't to innocent.

[EdSki]

Shields up test for ports it can probe on your machine. Although it doesn't provide a 100 percent (or even close to that) test of vulnerability for troyans, it's a good way to test which ports are open on your machine.

But indeed there is no way of course this a 100% proof test of firewall software. What about trojans that setup connections from your machine to something like a irc channel instead of listing at certain ports? Maybe it would be good if Steve Gibson would warn about this on his site. NAT won't provide any protection in this case either, btw.

But I really don't think Steve Gibson is a quack..

Grtz,
Ed

[Guyver]

You can also check out www.dslreports.com

They have a port scanner/sniffer as well.

I use a Linksys HPRO200 with built in FireWall (basically a port blocker) as I am using a goodly sum of the different network functions for testing / learning.

L8r,

Guyver

[Gurm]

Quack?

Well, it's not so much that he's a quack, it's just that he's on this tirade about how insecure Windows in general is, and Windows XP is in particular. And in reality, short of a Smurf or DDOS, you'd have a hard time hacking my machine. Running Windows XP, no firewalls. It's pretty secure. Is it invulnerable? Nope. But then again, neither is Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris or IBM AS/400, or ANY system.

Steve just needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

But he has a valid point - as shipped and preconfigured, XP home is pretty vulnerable. But it's not really too hard to tell people to turn off useless features, instead of telling them to buy Zone Alarm Pro or Black Ice Defender.

- Gurm

[cbman]

Thanks Greebe... it will give me something to waste my time at work reading... so far it seems really funny.