Rest your fears, it's not as bad as it looks. First, you don't need the ftp, mail, etc ports open for you to be able to ftp, mail, etc. Second, you must have installed the server installation. To stop those ports from being opened, open up /etc/inetd.conf and then put a "#" (w/o quotes) in front of each service you don't want (the # comments out that line). Remember that you can still use that service on your machine though, so don't worry about commenting out "pop3" or anything else. I have all those services commented out on mine. Then you can either reboot for those new settings to take place. Or there is some way to stop and restart it without rebooting, but I've forgotten it. And from everything I've read, and all the exploits I've looked at, Linux is a heck of a lot more secure than Windows. So if anything, if you're concerned about security, stick with Linux. > Is using IP MASQ safe? I have it running on my linux machine, and i went to > www.grc.com and tried the ShieldsUp that tests your security and it said i > had some ports open like ftp, and mail and others. I need to use these > things, but if it's not safe to do on linux, i guess i'll just go back to > windows. How can i fix this?? -- Anthony Huereca http://m3000.1wh.com Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
