[lug] Interesting Crash Report

[David]

First, thank you Scott and D. Stimits for confirming my fears and also
for the advice.  I failed all those tests, except lsof, which appears
not to be on my machine; what/where is it?  I have re-installed 6.2,
changed my password, killed rpc.statd (how do I disable it, please),
and renamed nfslock.  I hope to be safe for another ten minutes or so.

I have studiously avoided security issues until now because I have
plenty of other things to do with my time and I know that a good
number of hours will be consumed by it.  I have trusted in a quick
connect and disconnect policy for my security.  This has worked quite
well really: I was caught when I started surfing a little.  However, I
suppose the hour cometh, so I have more questions.

What I should like to do is have a two or three machine local network
in the house connected to the outside world via the television cable;
the latter for speed and to avoid preventing use of the telephone.
The local network must accomodate MS NT etc. as well as Linux.  I
assume that this is a very common setup.  Is that true?  Is it a
sensible way to go?  Is there something better, and why is it better?
Do I tie myself to AT&T, or can I use my present ISP, etc?

I should like to understand what I am doing, rather than simply follow
a procedure.  Although, in truth, that is only because I know that I
shall have to fiddle with it later.  So, a question is: where do I
read about what to do?  What is the best starting point; HOWTOs, buy a
book (which one), BLUG archives, or what?

I have read the term ipchains many times; are they part of a good
technique?  What about tummy's isinglass?  I have heard that a router
is a good security device; and I have heard that a router is a bad
security device.  How secure is RedHat 7.1?

Yours in ignorance, but hopeful.
dajo