Re HW, its the amt of traffic, not the num of sites (I assume you mean websites) ie 1 heavily used site could floor your router or it could handle 10 unpopular sites

The protocols for the internet generally (not just http, https) are well defined; you shouldn't have a problem at that level between different manufacturer's routers...

For general (ie any kind of traffic/protocol) secure cxns, you could use a vpn.
For specific jobs you could use encrypted protocols eg ssh/scp/sftp, & https. See also eg vsftpd+TLS (ditto LDAP+TLS) etc.
You could even use gpg to encrypt your files before you send them.

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/
http://www.openssh.com/
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Layer_Security
http://www.gnupg.org/

HTH

Thanks Chris,

I am sure I have seen those particular sites and do work with those types of protocols often. The question was really how to detect snooping and I think that we have come to the conclusion some work is in progress with a new type of encryption that can show if it has been viewed, but otherwise, we should encrypt everything.

Thanks for the links and time to post, the thread is richer with your contribution and of course, links allow others to research more.

Gund