Sunday, March 11, 2007
Still on dialup? You can have a firewall anyway.
Everyone says to get a firewall, they usually mean a box that sits between your computer and the wild Internet, and when you go to The Store you discover that all such boxes expect you to have a broadband connection.
One option would be to install software on your computer, such as Zone Alarm or Kerio, which tries to regulate your network connection. This kind of software is for some reason called "personal firewall", it does work, but I prefer to stop attacks before they're clawing at my computer.
There is a way, which I discovered while doing free (gag) research (it was for a nonprofit and my wife belongs to it). Turns out that some products called "routers", which give you a bare-bones kind of firewall, have a feature that sends your connection over a backup modem if your real, high speed Internet connection fails.
Your dialup firewall, or modem firewall, or whatever you call it consists of taking such a box, hooking up an external modem to it, entering your ISP's phone number in setup, and then letting the box think you're a broadband customer whose normal connection just happens to be down a lot, like 100% of the time.
You probably don't have an external modem unless you're really old, but someone you know may have one in a closet, and sometimes they show up used. A fair price is $5-10.
An example of a router with dialup backup is the US Robotics USR8001. Some resellers don't even list the dialup capability as a feature. It's there anyway.
So here's what your dialup firewall setup will look like. There will be an Ethernet cable from your computer to the router, a serial cable (should come with the modem) to the modem, two more power cords with wall warts that each cover up the outlet next to the one they're using (grr), and your phone cord plugs into the external modem like it plugged into your computer before.
Incidentally, you can limit the nuisance of those wall-warts by using a one-foot-long extension cord to keep them away from the power strip.
Disclosure section: I'm a customer of all the companies mentioned here except Kerio, but have no other business relationship with them.
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One option would be to install software on your computer, such as Zone Alarm or Kerio, which tries to regulate your network connection. This kind of software is for some reason called "personal firewall", it does work, but I prefer to stop attacks before they're clawing at my computer.
There is a way, which I discovered while doing free (gag) research (it was for a nonprofit and my wife belongs to it). Turns out that some products called "routers", which give you a bare-bones kind of firewall, have a feature that sends your connection over a backup modem if your real, high speed Internet connection fails.
Your dialup firewall, or modem firewall, or whatever you call it consists of taking such a box, hooking up an external modem to it, entering your ISP's phone number in setup, and then letting the box think you're a broadband customer whose normal connection just happens to be down a lot, like 100% of the time.
You probably don't have an external modem unless you're really old, but someone you know may have one in a closet, and sometimes they show up used. A fair price is $5-10.
An example of a router with dialup backup is the US Robotics USR8001. Some resellers don't even list the dialup capability as a feature. It's there anyway.
So here's what your dialup firewall setup will look like. There will be an Ethernet cable from your computer to the router, a serial cable (should come with the modem) to the modem, two more power cords with wall warts that each cover up the outlet next to the one they're using (grr), and your phone cord plugs into the external modem like it plugged into your computer before.
Incidentally, you can limit the nuisance of those wall-warts by using a one-foot-long extension cord to keep them away from the power strip.
Disclosure section: I'm a customer of all the companies mentioned here except Kerio, but have no other business relationship with them.
# posted by Frederick @ 8:22 PM Email to a friend:
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