Questions, Questions, Always Questions

Have onboard network adapter wired to port one on D-link wireless access point, wired to DSL modem. No problems connecting to net or lan.

Network adapter, with integrated LEDs, dsl modem with integrated LEDs, D-link adapter with integrated LEDs.

These LEDs on all three units blink almost constantly, which I assume means traffic, even though the LAN is shut down, and to the best of my knowledge there is no traffic.

If something or someone is poking around the net using my machine, I'd sure like to know who or what. I have XP set to notify me of updates and Norton AV to do the same. Do these programs keep in touch with home every second?

Any programs around to sniff out this activity?? See who's doing what to whom?

Many thanks to this great board and all of the experts unselfishly helping others.

Martin

 

They make hardware and software "packet sniffers" that can trap every packet in and out for examination. But they are expensive and need some expertise to make sense of the data they collect.

I'd suggest as a first thing to do - install a good firewall that monitors both inbound and outbound traffic. It will offer you quite a bit of protection and may well tell you exactly what is causing the activity. A firewall that advertises itself as "stateful" is even better since it uses some logic to ensure that packets in and out thru ports you have open for legit uses (port 80 for internet, 25 & 110 for email, etc.) are only passing traffic that belongs to those apps and will alert you if they see odd things trying to pass in or out.

Zone Alarm has a free version that I hear is pretty good. Never used it though.

And take a look at This thread for a possibility. I've heard of several apps doing similar things.

 

Thanks Newt.

I had Zone alarm Pro installed on this machine and could not get wireless LAN to work with it. Blocked the other computers and could'nt get it set to let them through. I'll re-install it and spend some time fiddling with the settings.

Martin

 

Good. The Pro version will give you most of the information you want. If you get stuck on the settings, post another thread to the "other software" section and you should get plenty of help. A number of folks on here run ZA-pro and have home networks.

 

Thank you

 

I had ZA (free version) running on my LAN server. Other PC worked OK, but had problems with shared Lexmark 1100 Series printer regardless of tweaking ZA. Ended up uninstalling ZA and now using Outpost with much more success.

Maybe because the Lexmark isn't a stand alone??

 

Could well have been the Lex.

Suggestion for you in the future or anyone else with similar issues - install the NetBEUI protocol on your PCs in addition to TCP/IP. It will run the printer fine and firewalls don't even see NetBEUI traffic so they won't/can't block access.