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Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

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Selecting Always Allow will add the application to the list with incoming connections<br />

allowed. Selecting Deny will also add the application to the list, but with incoming connections<br />

blocked. Should you change your mind, you can edit the settings from the Security panel.<br />

Similarly, if you enable a network service from the Sharing panel in System Preferences, that<br />

service will automatically be added to the firewall’s list of allowed applications.<br />

There are also a couple of advanced firewall settings that can be accessed by clicking the<br />

Advanced... button on the security panel. This will pop up a sheet, as shown in Figure 20-3.<br />

Figure 20-3. Advanced firewall settings sheet in System Preferences<br />

CHAPTER 20 LEOPARD NETWORKING 353<br />

The first preference, Enable Firewall Logging, keeps a log of all firewall activity. This is a<br />

good way to see who’s been trying to connect to your computer, and is always an interesting<br />

read. You can get to the log by clicking the Open Log... button next to this preference, but you<br />

can also access the log directly using the Console utility in /Applications/Utilities.<br />

The second preference is to enable stealth mode. Essentially this means your computer<br />

ignores pings, giving it the appearance of being off or disconnected from the network. Logic dictates<br />

this should make you some percentage safer.<br />

Some people say that stealth mode won’t make you any safer, and certainly it makes your<br />

computer uncooperative with the protocols of the Internet. Since none of those people are named<br />

Bruce Schneier, I generally ignore them.<br />

That is to say, I run stealth mode. People don’t need to ping my computer, regardless of the<br />

way the Internet is supposed to work. If you find yourself running network diagnostics or have<br />

your machine set up as a server, you’ll probably want to disable stealth mode.<br />

NOTE <strong>Mac</strong>hines on a local network that uses network address translation (NAT) aren’t usually<br />

visible to the Internet, but depending on your network, you might want to run stealth mode<br />

anyway. The people on a home network are probably more trustworthy than the people on the<br />

open Wi-Fi at a coffee shop.

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