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They say when you`re online, a third party can tap into your internet connection/watch your activity. How does that happen? When you`re online there is just your computer a cable connected to your computer`s network board and a computer at the other end representing the ISP. To my mind in order for someone to read your exchange of information he has to connect physically to the cable that between you and the ISP. If I force my imagination to run wild I could imagine the network board decoding the signal traveling down the network cable as requests made to the computer`s inner channels which I assume is what win sockets are.
In this case `listening` could mean that something at the end of one socket is observing what is passing through another socket. But for this to happen I imagine some kind of monitoring software would have to be installed, I suspect sockets aren`t made by default to watch one another.
Also does a networking cable transport a single stream of data? To my mind the cable frequency would have to be extremely high to permit the transition of a decent amount of data. If there are several steams of data in a cable it`s easy to imagine information coming from one stream being illegaly read/stolen on the end user computer by a piece of software and sent back towards the malitious person through another stream.
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Quote: When you`re online there is just your computer a cable connected to your computer`s network board and a computer at the other end representing the ISP.
Um. No, it doesn't quite work like that ... How does the internet work? - BBC Bitesize[^] There is no "direct connection" between your computer and the server, and two messages you sent to teh same server at the same time may take wildly different routes to get there.
Open a command prompt, and type "tracert Codeproject.com" and see what happens ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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thanks codeproject member OriginalGriff
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OriginalGriff wrote: two messages you sent to teh same server at the same time may take wildly different routes to get there.
Yeah, that is what my university textbook said, too.
If some swordfish decides to cut a transatlantic fiber cable, the automatic rerouting of IP packets in the Internet will ensure that all your packets immediately will be routed along alternate paths.
Uh, not. While that would be according to the principles - and you can easily set up a model network to "prove that it works that way, it doesn't work that way in practice. In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is.
In theory, every IP packet is routed independently, regardless of the routing of the previous packet (or the following one) between the same two endpoints, requiring a complete evaluation to be made by every single router for every single IP packet. In low-capacity you usually have no options: You have only a single line to your ISP; there is no significant routing decision to be made. Once the packet gets out on the highway, the routers handle millions of packets every second. There is no time to give each packet individual treatment. Every packet to the same destination - and for long hauls, we are not talking about end nodes, but end subnets, are routed exactly the same way, according to routing tables that are far more static, and far more manually managed, than internet people like to admit.
Certainly there is no galvanic connection between endpoints. Certainly the connection doesn't have a cable by itself. It doesn't even have a given timeslot to itself, the way phone connections had in the pre-ip-phone days. IP packets are statistically multiplexed on on huge capacity line. But for all practical purposes, they do all go on the same line, the same cable.
I guess that if you pay for five separate ISP connections, which are connected to five different backbone networks managed by five huge, competing companies each running their own transatlantic cables, and your local router distributes your packages evenly, evert fifth package to each ISP, you will succeed in breaking up your packet stream. Yet the five partial streams may be collected into one stream (although not ordered in sequence) long before the packets reach their destination. Unless your peer has a similar setup, you may expect the reply packets to come in on a single one of your five ISP connections.
Everything about distributing packets on separate links is perfectly well within TCP/IP standards, and any IP stack will handle it without problems. Yet, that is not how it normally operates today. For reasons of speed and performance, all packets follow the same route.
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And sitting at almost any destination network is a firewall which prefers and often requires symmetric routing for its logic to work.
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If you want a real-world education on how security works, explained from the perspective of a guy who's been coding for a lifetime, I highly recommend Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast.
It's mostly a weekly "IT security news" podcast, but in almost every episode, he's got a segment (normally towards the end) where he goes deep into how some particular vulnerability works. Typically something that made the news on that given week.
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Must have been lonely and wanted some company.
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I'M TOO LATE!!
Nammit!
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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I guess you weren't Vluggen enough 
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now I unplugged my old modem and installed new one successfully.
one question is: how to handle this old modem? I assume it may have some information stored in the memory of it.
or I can be completely wrong since I am not good at hardware stuff.
diligent hands rule....
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12 ga. is pretty effective...and a lot of fun!
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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Yes, make it a skeet target. "Pull!"
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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A perfect shot is had at the distance where the buckshot spread matches the size of the modem. 
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I was thinking 00 Buck Shot ought to work just fine.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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And if you have a clueless son-in-law... He could hold it for you! LOL
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Same as when I retired my previous router - don't change a thing, set it aside in a drawer, so if the current one dies unexpectedly, you have a replacement that can simply be reconnected and ready to go immediately with no downtime, while you're waiting for a new one to be shipped.
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this is a nice way to do it.
initially I plan to hammer it and dump it into trash bin.
diligent hands rule....
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If it's actually no longer functional and you need to dispose of it, yeah, I'd do the same.
But if it's still working and you're just replacing it for "something better", the old hardware is still worth hanging on to IMO for the reason I gave. It's actually saved me some serious downtime.
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If you want to make it reusable for someone else, most of them have a 'bent paperclip' factory reset, which should erase all your configuration.
If not, the admin interface (if you can get in!) should have a similar facility.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Microwave on high for 5 minutes
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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Many modems can be configured as repeater, I use an old one to improve WIFI coverage.
It had been used in its 2nd life as a switch (replaced by an 8 port switch).
Another one I use to create a standalone network for testing.
Other ideas
- create a dedicated guest (or kids) network. Easy to enable/disable.
- create a cabled cluster of Raspberry PI's
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your input is enlightening
My Modem is ARRIS SB6190.
diligent hands rule....
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There's probably a Doom port for it floating around somewhere, if you need an oddball retro gaming device. 
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Reminds me of an old joke:
Q: How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:That's a hardware issue.
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Is it a 1200 Baud modem? did you upgrade to a 56k modem? I could use your old one for my AOL account.
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