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Any time a computer is on a network where it may be "always on" for hours, whether a cable modem, DSL, or on a university campus, it's advisable to have anti virus software on the computer. For computers that reside on networks that don't have external hardware firewalls, a personal firewall, even one in software and on the box in question, is also worth strong consideration. The firewall can advise you of repeated attacks that you otherwise would never find out about. The original question was whether this is advisable for faculty. My suggestion is to try it out with a few faculty members for a while and see how it goes. They probably will need a bit of education as to why it's popping up and asking for permission to let, say, Internet Explorer act as a server. /rich >Putting a "firewall" on the machine that winds up protecting >itself is something of a bad idea. A firewall really wants to >be an entity which has all the packets in the network flowing >past it, where it makes determiniations about them. > >Putting this software right on the client machine, espically >a software platform that more resembles swiss cheese than >rock would seem to be fraught with potential problems. > >Would this help, at least some? Probably. Proper security >is much more like an onion than a castle wall--oen does >things layer by layer, each hopefully adding something to >the equation. > >You might want to tell your users that it isn't likely to hurt, >but also, it isn't likely to be of tremendous help in some >new nasty attack. > >I have heard too many people say "we have a firewall! We're >safe!", not understanding that a firewall by definition has to let >certain types of packets though (like http), and as such isn't >protection for a web server. If you can educate people that >this is just one tool in the arsenal of security and not a holy >weapon, then it is likely a win. I still question the effectiveness >of the placement of the tool however. > >--STeve Andre' (Political Science computer geek) > >On Thursday 16 January 2003 14:15, Cheryl Akers wrote: >> BlackICE personal firewall as sold by the computer store for $5 >> Should I recommend it to my faculty users? >> >> Rating? >> >> 1) Better than nothing >> 2) More trouble than it is worth >> 3) If you're going to pay, buy something worthwhile like Zone Alarm >> >> Is the firewall in XP as good as the one in BlackIce for nonserver >> purposes? >> >> Other thoughts? >> >> Thanks >> Cheryl