INLS 187 - Information
Security
Software Review - Assignment 2
January 14, 2003
I'm a person who likes to know whats going on with every aspect of my life. With that being said you can well imagine that I am someone who is aware of the possibility of people looking at me while I am connected to the Internet. I also do not like the computer and its software communicating with others without my knowledge or permission while connected to the Internet. I therefore have a firewall on my laptop that allows me to monitor the communications that go in and out of it. The likelihood of a hacker or cracker taking an interest in my computer is slim, but I still don't like the idea that some software reports back to its creators and some people like to 'ping' and probe you while on the Internet.
I have tried several different firewalls over the years, such as BlackICE and the Tiny Personal Firewall, until I settled on the one that I felt comfortable with. Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm is the firewall that I use on my laptop and will henceforth be the topic of this review.
ZoneAlarm is a free firewall available from a variety of sources. If you are willing to part with $X you can have ZoneAlarm Plus which has several added features that are not available on the free version. For the average user, which I represent, the free version is sufficient to protect your computer from intrusion.
Currently I have ZoneAlarm version 2.6.231 on my computer and will take this opportunity to strip it out and install a newer version. The newer version that I will be installing is 3.1.395 which I obtained from c|net's download.com
The Steps of Installation
Because I still use a local dial-up service it can take me some time to download things off of the Internet so I set Mozilla up to grab the requested file and walked away for some time. The ZoneAlarm setup.exe file took around 14 minutes to download and weighed in at 3.6 MB. This is not a large file in any sense but it could take people with slower connections, such as myself, some time to download from a home dial-up.
I started the setup.exe file and was prompted to exit all Windows programs. Within the same "window" I also directed to select a destination for the program on my computer.
The next phase of installation involves the voluntary registration of the product. You are prompted to enter your name, company or organization, and your e-mail address. They require this information so that they can send you updates about the software. As a personal preference I rarely register these products for of getting either inundated with mail from the company about unwanted products or getting spamed by another source. I generally keep abreast of what is going in the world by looking at websites relevant to what interests me and the security of my home computer.
The next "window" offers you the opportunity to read over the license agreement that must be signed in order to finish installing the product. Generally I do not read over these things when installing software as many of them are practically the same. In this instance though I am going to read over it to see exactly what it says and nab some of the more interesting things to display.
Of Interest (all statements taken directly from License Agreement):
- GRANT OF LICENSE: Subject to the terms below, ZONE LABS, INC.("ZONE LABS") hereby grants you a non-exclusive, nontransferable license to install and to use the downloadable, standard version of ZoneAlarm ("Software").
- If you are licensing the Software as an individual or not-for-profit charitable entity as set forth in U.S.C., Title 26, Section 501 (c)(3)(excluding governmental entities and educational institutions) only, your license will be free to you for the term of the Agreement and you may: (i) install and use the Software on a single computer for your personal, internal use and in no event for the benefit of a company, for-profit entity, governmental entity, or educational institution; and (ii) copy the Software for back-up or archival purposes.
- Whether you are licensing the Software as an individual or on behalf of an entity, you may not: (i) reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software; (ii) modify, or create derivative works based upon, the Software in whole or in part; (iii) distribute copies of the Software; (iv) remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Software; or (v) resell, lease, rent, transfer, sublicense, or otherwise transfer rights to the Software.
- 2. TITLE: You acknowledge that no title to the intellectual property in the Software is transferred to you. Title, ownership, rights, and intellectual property rights in and to the Software shall remain in ZONE LABS. The Software is protected by copyright and patent laws of the United States and international treaties.
So in general you are signing a pretty basic end user agreement that is fairly atypical of software companies that allow you to download programs off of the Internet. My one bone to pick with the agreement is that you are not allowed to reverse engineer the software. For the most part if you can gain access to a software's source code through legal means you can than reverse engineer it. By agreeing to this license you have digitally signed your name to a contract that says you will not attempt to do so. Such is the price for having ZoneAlarm on your computer.
The software then goes through the process of actually installing the source code onto the computer. Upon completion of the you are welcomed with a nice splash screen.
Following this you review your Alert Settings. You can select from either "Alert me whenever ZoneAlarm blocks traffic" or "Don't alert me at all - protect my computer silently". As I stated earlier I am a bit of a control freak and I like to know what is going on in my surrounding. I therefore select the "Alert me whenever ZoneAlarm blocks traffic", which I can always change later when I truly get annoyed with the pop-up warnings.
You can now either view the tutorial or skip it. Because I know what I'm doing I am going to skip it. The first time that loaded ZoneAlarm on my computer I chose to view the tutorial and found it to be very useful.
The program is now installed and ready to "protect" you on the Internet.
The intention of this product is to monitor traffic to and from your computer. It does this by prompting you for a yes/no decision on the traffic. Should the program "mozilla.exe" by allowed access to the Internet. By checking yes you have given the program the ability to communicate via the Internet. If you chose no than the program is not allowed to communicate via the Internet. The thought process behind this is that by locking down your computer from any unsolicited outside activity you are protected. Pings and other probes are stopped and recorded in a log that you can access. The different types of blocked activities are explained in depth if desired.
My criteria for evaluation are really not very complicated.
- Does ZoneAlarm stop unwanted activity from occuring on my computer? Yes.
- Does it stop Microsoft products from reporting back to the mothership? As far as I can tell.
- Does it prevent people from pinging me and other probing searchs? Yes.
- Does it automatically generate a log of guilty programs and IP addresses? Yes.
- Was the cost right for me? Yes, you can't beat an effective free product, although they waive all legal responsibility for the product in the License Agreement.
- Is the product updated often? Yes, you are emailed about product updates.
I am pleased by the ZoneAlarm software. I like how it "archives" or logs unwanted activity for you to look at to determine what is going on. What I don't like about the product is the intrusive nature of the pop-up warnings. This time I managed to last 6 hours before I went in and manually selected the programs that had my OK to be on the Internet and the ones that are blocked from accessing it.
For the individual user this product gets my highest approval. If I were to setup a firewall in a corporate environment I would likely shop around some more because I would have more income to play with and would want to see what other equivalent companies are using. If I knew enough I would write my own program to monitor activities but an off-the-shelf is good enough for the average user.
The term firewall comes from the thick seperator that was used in coal burning engines to prevent accidental fires from destroying the train.