need firewall with dial-up?

[Aprille]

Just brought my CPU home from the computer hospital. She's much better, thanks for asking.

But the tech asked me why I had firewall software (BlackIce) if I'm using dial-up. He said chances were slim to none of getting hacked into through dial-up. I just thought it was a good idea to have if you're online with any connection.

So, do I need it or not? Apparently it's taking up valuable resources. Is Norton Anti-Virus enough protection? My ISP is AOL v9.0 if that makes any difference.

Other vitals: Gateway, AMD Athlon processor, 384 RAM (was 128 - tripled it today) Windows Me (yeah, I know - he strongly suggests upgrading to XP but he wants to wipe out my hard drive to do it!! ) There has got to be a better way!!! So I'm trying to cut down on unnecessary programs running in the background.

 

[ToyStory Fan]

You only need a firewall if you are staying online for extended periods...chances are you are not likely to get hacked into on a dial up line since you are getting a randomly assigned IP address. When you are running with a static IP address it is more likely that you will get hacked and therefore need a firewall.

 

[heathrow42]

Originally posted by ToyStory Fan
You only need a firewall if you are staying online for extended periods...chances are you are not likely to get hacked into on a dial up line since you are getting a randomly assigned IP address. When you are running with a static IP address it is more likely that you will get hacked and therefore need a firewall.

YES! You need it!

I know that this is a bit late in coming, but I just found this thread and had to reply because the above post is so absolutely, utterly false. Although I am sure that the poster had very good intentions. Everyone should have some type of firewall either on their computer or, in a perfect world at the edge of their network before it gets to their computer.

While it is true, that (normally) you get a randomly assigned ip address when you dialup, this alone does not make you impervious to the countless "scan and 'sploit" worms out there. These are worms where other infected computers randomly scan for other computers to infect. When they find one, it becomes infected and begins scanning as well. An infected machine does not know the difference between a randomly assigned ip and a static ip. Most of the worms released in the last year or so follow the pattern of scanning within the same (/16 or so) ip range that it's own ip is in.

So if computer A is infected and dials in and gets the ip 1.2.3.4 and you dial in and get the ip 1.2.3.5 you will get scanned and if vulnerable you will get infected.

Also, the idea that since you are only on for a short time the odds are in your favor, hasn't been true for atleast 4 years. With the Slammer worm (Jan 2003), over 90% of the internet had been scanned by infected hosts within 10 minutes, compared to Code Red (July 2001) which took about 30 minutes. How often are you online for less then 10 minutes!

Aside from worms, the next largest security threat to home/individual users would be Viruses (spread via files, emails and p2p) and web pages containing malicious code, as well as unknown file sharing, where your computer is compromised and used to host files (which could be anything)

And down.. at the bottom of the list (for home users anyway) would be direct hacking.. someone, a physical person, decides to target you individually. Which generally happens when someone has been provoked, or has specific knowledge about you or wants specific knowledge about you. For example, someone on irc or a chatroom, might try to hack your computer to find out more info about you.

Everyone should also have anti-virus software. While we are talking about a perfect world, everyone should keep up to date with patches Windows, firewall, anti-virus and web browser are usually the most important. It would be nice if people had a good idea of what should and shouldn't be running on their computer, and didn't just arbitrarily download random software.

As to the OP's other questions.. you didn't mention what level processor you had, which would give me a better idea of how old it is. You could possibly further upgrade your memory (I am guessing you have 2 slots. You used to have a 128 in the first slot and they added a 256 to the second slot-- you could take out the 128 and add another 256 in it's place giving you a nice 500MB or half a gig!!) and if it's harddrive space.. you could replace your harddrive.. yes this would mean starting over a bit... you could do it one of 2 ways:

The Messy Way: Install new harddrive and copy everything over, or install old drive as a second drive (so it shows up as E: or something)
The Clean Way: Backup old data to cd or dvd and install new drive .. keep old drive incase you forgot anything and need to go back.

either way, it doesn't make sense to just wipe your existing drive and start over if it is more than a year or 2 old.

.. and you might want to update your version of blackice (if you still have it) a new worm came out targetting it.

..off soapbox now...

Sorry for the rant, computer/internet security is sooo important to me, I just had to say something.

--Heather

 

[crazelion]

Yes need firewall with dial-up. I would not get on the net without these days.

a good free firewall is:

www.zonealarm.com

 

[faithinkarma]

In my novice computer days I had dial up, with no firewall.

Someone was able to hack into my computer in a major way.

One day when I walked into the computer room I discovered my monitor was flashing a new message. Previously it had said QUEEN.......it now said WHA THE **** IS YUR PROBLEM

Whoever had done this had control of my computer. He was chatting online, with my persona, offering cyber sex all round.

I could watch the chat, but not intervene. He was sending messages to me that I should be very afraid. I shut down, had the computer fixed, was able to have this little jerk traced and reported, but it left me with a healthy paranoia of hackers.