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Cable modems put your computer in the same
'logical' network neighborhood as your neighbors. All the computers directly
connected to a cable modem in your neighborhood think they are on the same LAN
and try to communicate with each other. These computers then show up in
Microsoft's Internet neighborhood ready to be browsed. If network shares are
presented to your cable modem neighborhood, you can bet that someone is going
to 'browse' the neighborhood and try to access your shares. That is one of the
reasons it is SO important to have a software or hardware firewall with a
cable or DSL modem.
When file sharing is enabled, Microsoft windows
‘broadcasts’ the fact that you have files and printers to share. When ‘bound’
to TCP/IP, this information is available to the whole world! Hackers are
always scanning the Internet for Microsoft file and print shares on the
Internet. You can enable a password on each of your shares, but it is VERY
easy to forget to do this.
Worse still, if your computers were given IP
address’ by your ISP that are on different logical networks, or subnets, then
your computers will be unable to easily see each other in your network
neighborhood. If you are on a cable modem, your neighbors might be able to see
your computers easier than you can! ARGH!
Some web sites say that the best way to deal
with this problem is to install NetBEUI to share files and printers. The
problem with this is two fold. 1) your neighbors may STILL be able to see your
file and print shares and 2) your file copy traffic is not only sent between
your computers, it is sent out over the broadband modem! Copying files can
become VERY slow and unreliable. Often large files become corrupted or fail to
copy with a network like this.
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