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Does it matter if i start my firewall after i open my browser?
and...
Does turning off your DSL modem and router then turning them back on have any affect on security somehow?
thanks
>Does it matter if i start my firewall after i open my browser?
You should probably start your firewall before your network interface is brought up during the init process. I definitely wouldn't wait until I decided surf the internet in order to activate my firewall. You have to remember that a properly configured firewall should be "protecting" any vulnerable services that you have running. Without it activated, they're wide open for anyone to try to access/abuse.
>Does turning off your DSL modem and router then turning them back on have any affect on security somehow?
Depends. If you have a dynamic ip address, simply restarting your DSL modem will force it to re-connect to your ISP and more than likely it will grab a different IP address. So joe script kiddie who just scanned your box and found out that you have a vulnerable version of apache will now be screwed because you no longer have that address. However if you have a static IP address, obviously rebooting the modem/router won't have that affect. Realistically though, unless you're going to reboot your modem throughout the day, it really doesn't help all that much. It can help you to avoid things like ARP cache poisoning and other network high-jinks, but unless someone really doesn't like you, there isn't much of a point for them to go through the effort of doing that to some random DSL network. That's my $.02 anyway.
Huh? I am using Firestarter and on another post i was told that theres no way to start firestarter without entering my root password and by that point my internet connection has already been made a minute earlier. I also have privoxy running but im not sure what thats doing I just installed it and it seems to startup early on in the init process. Is there a firewall that i can use that starts up on its own. ? thanks
Firestarter is just a user-friendly front-end for iptables. So although firestarter doesn't start until you load it, firestarter has previously (when you configured it) written your ruleset to the iptables file. Iptables loads those rules during the init process, IIRC before the network interfaces are brought online. So your firewall is up and running before you can even log in. If you want to check, just run a portscan before and after you turn on firestarter. The results should be the same.
If you just want to check if there is a difference before and after you start firestarter, use nmap. Under normal circumstances, using nmap to check the integrity of your firewall isn't really wise, because you're scanning yourself and it won't give the same results as if you scanned from another computer (theoretically). A better way to do it would be to go to one of those "test your firewall" websites and let them scan your system from the outside. But again if you just want to see if there is a difference, you can probably just use nmap. What you'll be looking for (and hopefully seeing), is that the scans will have the same results before and after you turn on firestarter.
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