Router firewall no protection?

September 9, 2008

I asked this on the

microsoft.public.windows.networking.firewall

group but this is pretty inactive and I got no answer.

My old system is XP Pro SP3 and I use this to

configure the router. My new computer is an

ASUS Eee PC 900, Linux version. I have not used

it very much, just checked to see if I can access

the internet. I can.

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I have a second computer so I bought a router

(Zonet ZSR0104CP) to keep them both connected

to the net. This router is advertised as having

a firewall but to me, this firewall seems like nothing

but a joke.

As I understand it, a firewall should keep the

bad guys out. There are some things I can

configure, I will list them and I will tell you

why I think they suck.

1) MAC filtering. MAC addresses are only

available on the local net. I only have two

computers and I do not intend to use one to

hack the other.

OK, there are bigger LANs and there might be

those where this filering is meaningsfull.

Still, the great majority of baddies must be out

there, not on the LAN.

2) IP address filtering, 192.168.10.xxx to

192.168.10.xxx. LAN addresses, same as point 1.

3) Time filtering, day of the week and time to

block. The baddies do not work 9 to 15. This

is meant to keep the computer from the net, not

the net from the computer.

4) URL filtering, example from the set-up page:

*.*sex*.* . I don't trust that all sex sites

have "sex" in their names. I don't trust that

all trojan sites have "trojan" in their names.

I don't trust that the URLs from baddies are

not faked. I do not know if there is an URL in

all IP messages.

Besides the router, I am using the Windows

firewall. With an external firewall this should

not be necessary but I feel very unsure about

it.

I know something about networking but I am no

expert. Does the firewall have any value at