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

I have one of these myself, attached to my NTL cable modem. I've also noticed that the activity lights seem to blink all the time, so it would appear to be normal behaviour.

With regard to security, I'm under the impression that unless you specifically open some of the ports in the router's admin interface then you should be pretty much safe from port-scanning type attacks (though obviously not from email ones!). If I'm mistaken, I hope someone will jump in here..!

Yes I have the same set-up with NTL. Lights flash all the time - just as your modem receives data constantly.

Theres no built in firewall in that model, but I've tested it out and all the ports are shut so nothing has got through (touch wood). In fact I have to specifically open ports if I want to do ftp server stuff, or host games.

That sort of box will keep baddies from breaking in very well.

However, you can invite almost anything in through it - i.e., whatever web site you go to, as far as the box is concerned, you are "granting" permission to the content on that server. If it's a compromised server, you're pulling potentially virus/worm laden files back. The box will do no inspection of what you bring back - it is built with the assumption that you know what you're doing (about all you can expect for $50).

That sort of box needs you to diligently keep your antivirus definitions up to date, and I'd also suggest getting the ZoneAlarm program.

-jk