William---
Are you getting your Internet access from AOL or do you have another
Internet provide and connect to AOL through that?
I'm no expert on AOL, but my understanding is that it's dial-up access uses
it's own proprietary protocol, and it provide winsock-based IP access
through it's own virtual network adaptor - at least this is how previous
versions in the UK worked.
If, however, you have a "proper" Internet connection (ie. broadband or
proper PPP dialup), and you access AOL over that, then AOL uses it's own
special port over IP to communicate with it's servers, and it's that port
you need to allow through your IP firewall.
However, unless you've set your personal firewall rules up correctly, there
is no way you can stop ANY box TRYING to communicate with you on port 80,
whether from AOL or not. If you're not running a web server of any kind on
your box, then just block port 80, and don't bother configuring your
firewall to notify you. There is so much background noise on the Internet
that the value of receiving individual alerts is pretty meaningless
(although it's obviously useful to look at longer term trends for the
connections made to your box, to identify repeated connection attempts).
So, although AOL may block communication via it's own protocol from other
users, you should not rely on them to block anything else, whether from
other AOL users of anyone on the Internet. You're being scanned at an IP
level, not a proprietary AOL protocol level..
If you've never been scanned before, that more due to your luck than
anything else....
Russell
----- Forwarded by Russell Donoff/GB/ABNAMRO/NL on 12/09/2001 18:38
-----
"william.wells"
<william.wells@pr To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ovell.com> cc:
Subject: RE: AOL probe - "just" Code
Red
12/09/2001 18:21
What you are saying implies that other AOL users could access my
system from
their systems while I was logged into AOL. I thought AOL blocked
that -
perhaps not. I'm still talking to AOL. I've never been scanned
while on AOL
previously.
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