From: "Bob" Received: from [192.168.100.201] (HELO mail.2rosenthals.com) by 2rosenthals.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.1.16) with ESMTP id 1868401 for os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:05:05 -0400 Received: from secmgr-va.2rosenthals.com ([162.83.95.194] helo=mail2.2rosenthals.com) by secmgr-ny.randr with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.43) id 1N2w28-0005Dq-Oz for os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:05:05 -0400 Received: from relay00.pair.com ([209.68.5.9]:3870) by mail2.2rosenthals.com with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1N2w25-0000hw-2k for os2-wireless_users@2rosenthals.com; Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:04:58 -0400 Received: (qmail 61226 invoked from network); 27 Oct 2009 23:58:13 -0000 Received: from 98.119.173.89 (HELO Saturn.home) (98.119.173.89) by relay00.pair.com with SMTP; 27 Oct 2009 23:58:13 -0000 X-CTCH-RefID: str=0001.0A020203.4AE78AAA.000A,ss=1,fgs=0 X-pair-Authenticated: 98.119.173.89 Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:58:13 -0700 To: "OS/2 Wireless Users Mailing List" In-Reply-To: References: Subject: Re: [OS2Wireless] Re: eCS Firewall MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: The Polarbar Mailer; version=1.26dev; build=2264 X-Spam-Score: 0.0 (/) X-Spam-Report: _SUMMARY_ Message-ID: ** Reply to message from "Jon" on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:20:43 -0700 (PDT) > > > >I would use the same settings as what I use at home. > > > > A bit easier said than done. User rules would probably be easy enough to copy but IJFW has a > number of preset rules based on it's selectable security level. For example, (and I'm sure you > know this) the NAT engine drops unsolicited packets. When on the road, the wireless connection may > be using NAT I have not seen any public wireless access point that did not use NAT in the US or Europe. Of course if you are using someone's private network they may have a different setup. > but I don't know if the AP is dropping those packets nor do I know how to write a rule > to do the same (or AFAIK, it may not even be possible for the simple OS/2 firewall to do this). All unsolicited packets will be dropped (or rejected) by NAT. Unsolicited packets do not have enough information associated with them to be routed. > Maybe most of the public AP's that you used block unsolicited packets in the same manner but > because that info can't be seen then it isn't known to be happening. Perhaps this is why in the > many years of traveling you haven't had a problem? NAT by itself is a good firewall for unsolicited packets. If you do not click on a lot of links while browsing the internet you should not have problems. Likewise if your email client is fairly secure you will not have problems. If you click a lot of links and do not have your email client secure a firewall will not keep you safe. When I am connected to a public wireless access point I do not stay connected for hours, just enough time to get my email and occassionally to look at a URL. I am very selective on links I follow and my email client is set to only display plain text, this eliminates many problems. So having a connection through a public wireless access point (which uses NAT) and using safe surfing practices avoids problems. Just my experience and opinion. -- Robert Blair