[Techtalk] Personal firewalls: helpful?

[Tracey Clark]

Personally I run a firewall on my PC as well as having basic NAT provided
through my hardware router at home. As others have mentioned, it an added
layer of protection from the outside, it can let me know what applications
on my box are trying to connect to. This is currently more of a concern on
my Windows partition, when spyware tries to phone home or various apps try
to reach the Microsoft servers for unknown reasons. I'm not going to fool
myself into thinking spyware on Linux is impossible, however, I run a
firewall on Linux too.

And it was said by Listpig->
> 1) A network firewall isn't going to protect you from machines *inside*
> the network. If your network is at home, presumably you trust the machines
> and users you share the network with.

I'd like to add to this. On my home network there are 2 other people who
run Windows. One of them uses IE most of the time, the other uses it some
of the time. They are both pretty PC savvy, however, they are prone to the
limitations of Windows and ActiveX. If one of them gets a virus or other
malware through visiting the wrong website or being fooled by an e-mail
attachment, it may try to contact my box to attempt an infection. Even if
the malware cannot infect my Linux partition, firewalls can alert me to
the presence of this malicious network traffic. And on my Windows
partition, it may be the thing that prevents me from "friendly fire".

>  If it's not at home (school, work), then you have to consider the
> competence of the folks in charge of the firewall and the folks you share
> the network with.

Personally, I would say this applies even at home. It is not that I don't
trust my husband and roommate, it is that I know they are not infallible
and that malware is insidious.

-- 
Tracey
Linux Counter #264789