Internet Privacy Protection

[Oldfatslob]

Be warned, you are in for a long story if you want to read this.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in my 2nd cousins' hunting cabin in TN, when another relative dropped by with some nerdy Gov IT Network dude. Anyway, I asked his opinion on certain things pertinent to security, and he stated in no way was there any security in anything. In other words, with a determined adversary, they could be in my system in a matter of minutes, no matter what software or hardware security or any combination of any I had. He further elaborated that he himself never ever whatsoever did any sort of banking or purchasing online, nor put any financial information on his computer ever. In other words, what I'm trying to say, is that my impression of him is a paranoid feller who attended too many hacker conventions which he himself admitted to.

Now to the review in question:
Today, I had the glorious pleasure (sarcasm in case anyone was wandering) in taking my children to the mall to do late Xmas shopping with the money family had bestowed upon them instead of thoughtfully picking gifts like anyone that would care would do. So, like any redneck tech minded bumpkin like myself would do, I let the girls at it with the clothing stores with their mom while I walked around and happened into Radio Shack looking at all their glorious yellow tags they have stuff on clearance for. And what do I see but a 99.99 dollar gizmo called an "Alpha Shield Auto Disconnect Firewall Security" thing on sale for $19.99 + (no lubricant) TAX.

After waiting a few (more than 3) hours for the minors to make up their minds on finishing buying things, we headed for the homestead. I proceeded unpacking and reading directions, then connected between access point and router to which my home systems are attached, (access point from my next door office shared satellite internet which I also own), for testing purposes until the morrow when I connect it to the entire network system. Anyway, I powered up my home computer, took notice that my alerts from sygate personal firewall and peer guardian that normally prompted me were no longer doing so. So I glanced at said Alpha Shield product to see the (globe icon) internet light was occasionally flashing red in amidst it's normally green color, which indicated that it was blocking pings, snoops, or whatever you would normally call those things you don't know coming in to see if you exist net activity. And, while doing so, I took sight of my normally flashing network icon to see it's as black as coal. No network activity that I didn't start for a change.

My experience now is that this device would have been worth the original price, but I got it at a loss for the vendor. Too many folks don't know about the importance of these things, and like my brothers in law, have had their system took over while they watched the mouse pointer come to life on it's own without their consent.

Before the addition of above mentioned device, there is the Wilblue modem connected to a linksys router/firewall, connected to other computers in the office and also connected to linksys access point at office, beaming to linksys access point at home, connected to netgear router/firewall, connected to home computers. Note: all computers running AVG antivirus, sygate personal firewall, windows firewall, and some with peer guardian. The Wildblue modem is supposed to have some sort of firewall in it too.

Now a determined hacker would probably get through all that if they had enough time and patience, while a computer was on, if they knew the computer was there, (not stealthed), but this device is reviewed and advertised to stealth itself and everything behind it, and grc test only saw the modem's open ports.

So, my opinion is that the device eliminated the network activity on the icon next to my system clock, therefore, eliminated any unsolicited snooping. Worth every penny, even if I had paid full price, (which I didn't). Not even the Netgear or Linksys devices could do that.