I have one of these sitting between my cable modem and the various machines in the house. Im using both the DCHP and NAT functions on it. I also have a graphite airport plugged in to give my laptops household roaming.

I have several simi related questions.

The activity lights on cable modem and the NG box both seem to blink all the time. Are they telling me about activity aimed my way or about stuff just passing by? They blink even when all the computers are turned off.

The netgear box, Just what does my having it connected in line, do in the way of protecting my home systems? It's pretty much out of the box. I mean some of the current attacks seem to only need a receptive cpu attached directly to the internet. So how much does one of these boxes stop/filter out all by it's self?

BTW the Airport is configured to only accept specific MAC's. Is this by itself good enough to stop the unknowns from linking in that way?

Glenn