Firewall Question

HI all

Thought I would try out a new firewall today. I set up a new machine with
no software firewall installed, XP Firewall was off and so was the one in
the router.

To get a control I ran a number of on-line firewall checkers,

www.hackerwatch.org
www.grc.com Shields Up
www.firewallguide.com

To my surprise every single one gave my machine a clean bill of health.

How is this possible, What am I missing.




Paul

"Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:e2trlc$jvb$(E-Mail Removed)...
> HI all
>
> Thought I would try out a new firewall today. I set up a new machine with
> no software firewall installed, XP Firewall was off and so was the one in
> the router.
>
> To get a control I ran a number of on-line firewall checkers,
>
> www.hackerwatch.org
> www.grc.com Shields Up
> www.firewallguide.com
>
> To my surprise every single one gave my machine a clean bill of health.
>
> How is this possible, What am I missing.
>
You didn't restart the router after switching the firewall off - so it
stayed on.

"Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:e2trlc$jvb$(E-Mail Removed)...
> HI all
>
> Thought I would try out a new firewall today. I set up a new machine with
> no software firewall installed, XP Firewall was off and so was the one in
> the router.
>
> To get a control I ran a number of on-line firewall checkers,
>
> www.hackerwatch.org
> www.grc.com Shields Up
> www.firewallguide.com
>
> To my surprise every single one gave my machine a clean bill of health.
>
> How is this possible, What am I missing.

A pound gets you a penny that the router is in NAT mode.

>>
>> How is this possible, What am I missing.
>>
> You didn't restart the router after switching the firewall off - so it
> stayed on.
>
No that's not it the router was re started

"Alastair" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:44527738$0$655$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:e2trlc$jvb$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> HI all
>>
>> Thought I would try out a new firewall today. I set up a new machine
>> with no software firewall installed, XP Firewall was off and so was the
>> one in the router.
>>
>> To get a control I ran a number of on-line firewall checkers,
>>
>> www.hackerwatch.org
>> www.grc.com Shields Up
>> www.firewallguide.com
>>
>> To my surprise every single one gave my machine a clean bill of health.
>>
>> How is this possible, What am I missing.
>
> A pound gets you a penny that the router is in NAT mode.
NAT is enabled, there doesn't appear to be an option to turn it off.

What does NAT do.

Thanks

"Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:e2tvi9$d5u$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Alastair" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:44527738$0$655$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> "Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:e2trlc$jvb$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> HI all
>>>
>>> Thought I would try out a new firewall today. I set up a new machine
>>> with no software firewall installed, XP Firewall was off and so was the
>>> one in the router.
>>>
>>> To get a control I ran a number of on-line firewall checkers,
>>>
>>> www.hackerwatch.org
>>> www.grc.com Shields Up
>>> www.firewallguide.com
>>>
>>> To my surprise every single one gave my machine a clean bill of health.
>>>
>>> How is this possible, What am I missing.
>>
>> A pound gets you a penny that the router is in NAT mode.
> NAT is enabled, there doesn't appear to be an option to turn it off.
>
> What does NAT do.
>
> Thanks

Your router has your public IP address, your PC has an internal one, so is
not connected to the internet directly.
When you want to brows to a web page, your PC asks the router for the
information, the router goes and gets it, and passes it on to the PC.

Now, if someone outside probes your connection, your router does not know
where to route this traffic, so ignores it.

If you have set rules in your router to forward ports to certain internal IP
addresses, then the router knows where to direct the traffic, otherwise it
gets ignored.

You can usually set a "DMZ" address in your router if you put one of your
PC's internal IP addresses in here, then the router will forward all
otherwise ignored traffic, to this PC.

I expect the firewall on the router just tells the router not to respond to
ping requests, and if it sees a lot of unsolicited traffic from a particular
source, blocks it for a period of time.

Hope this helps!

Sparks..

>
> Your router has your public IP address, your PC has an internal one, so is
> not connected to the internet directly.
> When you want to brows to a web page, your PC asks the router for the
> information, the router goes and gets it, and passes it on to the PC.
>
> Now, if someone outside probes your connection, your router does not know
> where to route this traffic, so ignores it.
>
> If you have set rules in your router to forward ports to certain internal
> IP addresses, then the router knows where to direct the traffic, otherwise
> it gets ignored.
>
> You can usually set a "DMZ" address in your router if you put one of your
> PC's internal IP addresses in here, then the router will forward all
> otherwise ignored traffic, to this PC.
>
> I expect the firewall on the router just tells the router not to respond
> to ping requests, and if it sees a lot of unsolicited traffic from a
> particular source, blocks it for a period of time.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Sparks..
Thanks for the reply, That makes it a bit clearer.

Thanks