Monday, August 16, 2004
Personal Firewall
What is a Firewall?
A Firewall completely isolates your computer from the internet and uses a "code wall" that receives every "data packet" as it arrives on both sides of the firewall (ingoing and outgoing) and decides whether the packet may go through or whether it will be blocked.
How does a Firewall work?
When two computers on the internet would like to exchange information, they do so in the form of data packets. There is a continual stream of packets between the source computers and destination computers. Every packet on the internet includes the address of the destination computer and the address of the source computer.
A Firewall inspects every data packet before it is received by a program run on the computer. In other words, the Firewall entirely controls what your computer will receive from the internet.
A Firewall can therefore be selective in what it accepts and turns down. A Firewall could for example permit that computers can connect with a web server on your computer, but not permit entry of computers with a suspicious address.
A Firewall can also determine the ingoing stream into your computer. It is possible for a Firewall to trust your mail program, and allow your mail program to connect freely to the Internet, while not allowing a game to connect to the Internet for example.
Recently, more and more Personal Firewalls have emerged which regulate the traffic for your own computer. The challenge for a program designer is to create a solid program with an easy interface.
A Firewall completely isolates your computer from the internet and uses a "code wall" that receives every "data packet" as it arrives on both sides of the firewall (ingoing and outgoing) and decides whether the packet may go through or whether it will be blocked.
How does a Firewall work?
When two computers on the internet would like to exchange information, they do so in the form of data packets. There is a continual stream of packets between the source computers and destination computers. Every packet on the internet includes the address of the destination computer and the address of the source computer.
A Firewall inspects every data packet before it is received by a program run on the computer. In other words, the Firewall entirely controls what your computer will receive from the internet.
A Firewall can therefore be selective in what it accepts and turns down. A Firewall could for example permit that computers can connect with a web server on your computer, but not permit entry of computers with a suspicious address.
A Firewall can also determine the ingoing stream into your computer. It is possible for a Firewall to trust your mail program, and allow your mail program to connect freely to the Internet, while not allowing a game to connect to the Internet for example.
Recently, more and more Personal Firewalls have emerged which regulate the traffic for your own computer. The challenge for a program designer is to create a solid program with an easy interface.
# posted by firewall software @ 7:58 PM 
