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Hello:

In the minds of some, you don't require any registry utilities at all. The other antimalware applications is the price of keeping a system secure. Many find that an investment in a so-called security suite is an expensive undertaking that of course expires at the end of the "lease" period and may still be troublesome.

Many have found that best in breed security applications give them greater peace of mind and in fact much better provable protection.

Welcome to today's cyberspace and stop looking for easy-out solutions to absolutely immense security problems. BTW - Do you have a good NAT router in use?

The folks at your forum reposted this to the comp.security.firewalls Usenet newsgroup. What was your firewall question again? :-)

HTH

'Good' and 'NAT' is a contradiction on terms.

How so Jon? Inquiring minds...

Because NAT breaks things.

Hello Jon:

If it breaks 'your' specific things, then of course it's a serious issue for you and I understand. However, as a generality nearly 100% of enterprise must be using NAT routers now.

Without question, NAT routers have certainly helped the average home user greatly enhance their security in the last few years.

What sort of trouble has a NAT router given you? If my NAT router failed, I'd be terribly frightened about bypassing it till the trouble was resolved. Therefore, I do have a spare.

No, it doesn't break 'my' things since I don't use it. It breaks how protocols are designed to function.

Bullshit. There's no NAT at my present (or any of my previous work places, ranging from universities to smaller consulting firms), we all have/had public IPs behind a firewall. That NAT must be used together with firewalls is one of the most widespread misconceptions about firewalls there is. Please don't spread that misconception any further. NAT is address translation, not a security policy.

I don't have one, will never get one, so hence none whatsoever.

I too have come from one of the above environments. Years ago we began to turn away from "public" static IPs and move to "hidden" networks with DHCP for better user safety.

For the average home user, would you say that a NAT router is just "snake oil", or do you believe the average home user can benefit from the use of a NAT router?

Hello Jon:

I checked out your web site. Simply excellent. You need to add some photos of your cats and wife.

IP masquerading in itself is not a security policy, even though some still seems to believe that. It's a bit like saying 'if I cut my network cable, I'm secure'.

Yes, mainly due to the lousy IP masquerading implementation used in many 'broadband routers' and because it tend to break things general users do (Torrent traffic, VoIP, FTP, different gaming protocols et c). It causes more problems than it solve.

NAT doesn't break much, mostly poorly designed applications, and most apps work very well with NAT.

The benefit of NAT to protect a home network is far more important than being without it.

Stangely enough, almost all companies use some form of NAT for their public lan mapping.

The your places of work were wasting IP space.

We've got hundreds of corporate networks, all behind NAT, since the firewalls implement it perfectly.

We have the option of not using NAT, but have yet to find anything the businesses need that it causes a problem with.

NAT used in home/residential class routers IS a protection, it blocked unsolicited connections to the LAN.

No they are using IPv6. The problem of limited addressing is not solved by using NAT:ed IPv4. It's a broken solution.

NAT is not equal to IP Masquerading.

Like VoIP then?

But a false one due to crappy NAT/IP Masquerading implementations in consumer broadband routers.

My only expertise here is as a user. My VoIP works amazingly well on a resource starved system I use but through a very recently manufactured and more recently updated NAT router. Strictly as a guess, I wonder if those VoIP failures are incorrect implementations because several VoIP standards are in use?

dd-wrt.com appears to be taking corrective steps for VoIP for one.

I wonder here too if recent NAT router updates, that accept multiple VoIP standards, have corrected this?

Please elaborate. How exactly does NAT "break how protocols are designed to function"? Some special cases (particularly IPSec AH) aside I fail to see how that would be.

cu

No, it hasn't. NAT was never designed, nor is it suited, to be a security feature.

What you're referring to is dropping inbound connection attempts, which any even halfway decent packet filter should be able to do.

cu

Hello 59cobalt:

When an unwise user installs their new computer, with XP & only SP2 from an OEM build over a year old, no AV, no antimalware, and little self control, and their sweaty shaking hands connects that system to a NAT router's LAN port, I'd feel just a tiny bit better than if they'd connected directly to a bare cable modem. Wouldn't you? :-)

Respectfully,

No.

cu