way OT: Firewall Woes

after 40 hours w/o power folowing a night of severe storms, power was restored last night at my house. so after cleaning the refriogerator an dfrezer I sat down at my computer to go back online and had some problems.

I have a free subscription provided by my ISP to Computer Associates EZ Firewall etc.
That Firewall didn't allow any access to the web. I get a vinmon fault and breakdown of TrueVector (I have no idea what that really means).

On reboot, if I turn that Firewall off and use the Microsoft provided one, web access is fine. The EZ Firewall etc. was recently upgraded but worked before the power outage. I d/led and installed a fresh version and also ran a full virus scan and got the same results.

I'm on a wireless network in my house, so I'm not sure there's much point in having a Firewall anyway. One thing that did change recently was working with an ftp site I had to switch Passive access ftp (or such) off. This occurred to me once I went to bed -- so I didn't try switching that back -- but even then that was also working before the power outage.

I also upgraded to 1 gig of Ram and given some glitches I've seen now and then I'm also suspicious a little of whether or not that RAM is behaving. I'll run the SandraSI benchmark or such on that this weekend.

So can someone educate me on what might be going on and how badly I need for this to work in any case. Thanks.

Geez, I looked at those brickwall protection units years ago...are they still around? I thought those seemed to be an excellent product. Wonder what their website is...

there were definitely some power surges as I have a pretty good indicator:
if the ceiling fan in the bedroom is on (and it usually is in weather that spawns wee hour thunderstorms) the attached lights come full on.
quite an experience from a dead sleep to about 200 watts of light. that happened twice that night and shortly after the 2nd time there were two loud pops, which we've learned are the pole transformers tripping their breakers
i've replaced the flex circuit on the ceiling fan about 3 times since a really good spike can fry it. must be an interesting circuit -- too bad they can't build in some protection -- but sas someone at work pointed out there is protection from surges when the circuitry itself fuses.

one odd thing that the Zone Alarm mention reminded me of. When this True Vector issue happened the first time a web page came up that had intsructions for recovering AS IF i had Zone Alarm installed. and i know it's not.

ORIGINAL: sluggo

I don't use a firewall installed on my daw. For $30 or so you can get a router with a built-in firewall. Just plug your daw into one of these puppies and you're set. If you already have a wireless router, it probably has a firewall built into it. Just how much protection does a normal guy need from hackers? I don't think too much. No offense to you Wrench, but why would someone want to spend their spare time trying to break past a hardware firewall to get into your computer, I doubt the results would be that interesting for the hacker.

s

Routers aren't available for those of us on dial-up, only broadband. Been there, researched that a year ago.

..... but why would someone want to spend their spare time trying to break past a hardware firewall to get into your computer, I doubt the results would be that interesting for the hacker.

i agree why? but i get in excess of 500 unauthorized packets a day. many from asia many within the usa. all appear to be running programs that randomly look for the local port. maybe they could be unkilled packets left in some kinda un-dead limbo forever to travel the ether web.

No offense to you Wrench, but why would someone want to spend their spare time trying to break past a hardware firewall to get into your computer, I doubt the results would be that interesting for the hacker.

that was something i suspected and wanted clarification on
i use this Computer Associates Pest Control because it comes as a package with e-mail spam control, anti-virus, spyware, etc etc. (Thus turning every user into their own IS dept.)
The Firewall has created more problems than its ever solved I'm sure since I've had to disable it a number of times to upload and download from ftp sites.

I am a bit concerned if it might be a CMOS problem.

Wrench -

(Next morning, after some coffee). I believe I got the EZ package for my wife's new machine (A little Sempron box, replacing a K6-350 box around 5 years old that finally died...). I haven't been impressed with it, despite the all-in-one nature.

What techead said about zombie-fying computers is, unfortuately, absolutely true. Think seti@home, or the newer folding@home project: both use "spare cycles" on many, many, many computers to work on big problems -- but these computers are all volunteered by their owners. The recent 'hackbot@home' stealth projects find vulnerable PCs, take over their spare 'background cycles', and go to town. Guess where all that spam is coming from ! Could be your very own PC, if it's been infested. Plus, denial-of-service attacks, using your PC as a "safehouse" waystation for cracking sensitive sites ... there are lots of nefarious things that can be done with a 'subverted' PC, and the owner may never find out until he or she hears that knock on the door from the net police.....

I use a router with a firewall, but also run firewalls on individual PCs. I have a home LAN (both wired and wireless), and my daughters (and wife, sometimes) develop infestations on their systesm, which I don't want spreading to mine. Also, my employer requires 'personal firewalls' on any machine directly connected to their intranet (and checks for them regularly). (Regarding wireless -- I run WEP with 128 bit encryption and also restrict access to the known MAC addreses of the family PCs. That doesn't prevent eavesdropping -- WEP is crackable -- but keeps 'foreigners' from using my net unless they're pretty adept at spoofing MACs. Hmm. Maybe it's time to look into Win XP wireless security, which I've heard is better than WEP... not sure if it's available for XP Home, which is running on one machine...)

Waaaaaaay OT, but what the heck --

Jim

ORIGINAL: wrench45us
i installed Zone Alarm last night and by its interface I'd say Computer Associates has licensed Zone Alarm and repackaged it as EZ Firewall

This is exactly true...they licensed ZoneAlarm's engine, or they may have stake in the company. I found the same thing when I had to remove a non-functioning EZ Firewall from a couple of computers for a doctor's office a few months ago. They had "uninstalled" it but it did not go quietly nor completely. I had to follow a set of manual "uninstall" instructions from ZoneLabs to finally get EZ Firewall out of the system.

-Techead

They had "uninstalled" it but it did not go quietly nor completely. I had to follow a set of manual "uninstall" instructions from ZoneLabs to finally get EZ Firewall out of the system.

This would also explain why I got a Zone Alarm web site coming up with recovery instructions when True Vector failed.