Broadband - When always on means always open

By: Alan Davy

Companies such as Eircom, EsatBT, NTL are rolling out new high-speed home Internet connections throughout the country and if you've travelled the Waterford to Kilkenny road any time in the last month you'll know all about this because you'll have seen the roadworks involved. But there are some other things you should also know about these broadband connections.

A home Internet connection at the moment is usually handled by a modem or maybe an ISDN connection through the phone line. When a computer makes a dial up connection to the Internet, it is provided with a locator called an IP address. This unique address lets your computer communicate with other computers on the Internet. This address is assigned dynamically, which means every time your computer connects to the Internet you are given a different IP address. Because of this, Internet security threats are not considered to be a real problem.

The new broadband connections enable a home computer to connect to the Internet at speeds of up to ten times faster than regular phone line connections. Broadband connections are "always on", which means there is no need to dial out every time you want to surf the net. Because of this always on connection your computer will be assigned a static IP address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), giving it a permanent location on the Internet. This permanent address leaves your computer wide open to a security attack.
To understand this security threat, think of your computer as your house. Your house more than likely contains private items you would not like to be damaged or stolen by others.

Connecting to the Internet through an always-on broadband connection is similar to opening your front door and leaving it open. Anyone who knows your address can enter your house and damage or steal any confidential material your house contains. To prevent this intrusion from occurring, you would like to be able to lock the front door, and only allow entry to people you know.
There is a way that you can do this with your computer to protect it from Internet security threats and this is by using a firewall.

So if you're still thinking of your computer as your house, now you can add to this image by thinking of a firewall as a bouncer on your front door. Using an access control list the firewall will allow authorised traffic pass through your Internet connection and stop any unauthorised connections being made by hackers attempting to access files on your computer. Various personal firewall packages are available to download free from the Internet such as Sygate Personal Firewall (soho.sygate.com) and Zone Alarm from Zone Labs (www.zonelabs.com). These firewall packages can provide a reasonably sufficient amount of protection for home Internet connections.

At the moment with Eircom's i-stream broadband package, you can purchase a personal firewall. EsatBT broadband also offer a firewall called ZyWall for an additional fee. With the increase in home Internet users adopting always on broadband Internet connections, firewall software will be as common as regular anti-virus software before long, but until then, if you're considering a broadband connection and you have data on your computer that you don't want anyone else to access, a proactive step towards getting your own personal firewall could be a wise one.