Posted by Vince on 11/3/2009, 4:26 pm, in reply to "Re: Firewalls"
68.144.14.16
Comes into your house from outside ... ok? It comes from a power pole in your back alley .... usually.
There are two types of internet carrying wires: telephone line (DSL or dial-up) or television cable (cable internet).
"Something" has to be connected to the wire coming into your house, in order to "translate" the data coming into your house ...into computer language and to give YOUR place a unique address for your IP provider to connect TO. This something is called a modem. The modem differentiates the internet channel from television or phone channels on the respective type of service that you happen to have. It also provides the end-point address for YOUR computer. Without a modem, the IP provider would have NO IDEA of who is attempting to connect with their servers.
Think of a modem as the mailbox attached to the wall outside of your house. The postman "communicates" with the mailbox. He sees your address and your mailbox and drops letters addressed to YOU ... into the box. YOU communicate with your mailbox by getting your mail out. You can also leave notes in the mailbox for the postman to read and you could -if the system was set up that way- drop your own letters into the mailbox for the postman to pick up and send out for you. That's the function of a modem; to act as an address for you and to send and receive data between your computer and the internet.
Here is a quicky pix of the setup (also containing a router). The wire comes in from outside, goes into a broadband modem and then goes directly from there, into a router. From the router, it splits off into 4 other devices, 2 of them being computers.
If YOU do not have anything connected between the wire coming into your house, and your tower ... you may have the modem built right INTO your tower already. In this case you definitely need to have your personal firewall turned on in Vista.
In this case, you can STILL get yourself a modem and router or a modem/router if you want ...... but it would then connect in a different way and to a different point in your tower.
Will Norton protect you in the same way a firewall protects you? No, the anti-virus part of Norton will offer no protection against external hacking attempts or from hacking worms that float around on the internet. However, Norton generally has its OWN firewall included with the program and this firewall *should* function pretty well the same way as XP's own firewall. You should only have one internal firewall turned on at a time; either XP's or Norton's but not both.
-Vince
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