Windows Software for Controlling Outgoing Packets?

non carborundum asks: "When using Windows I use Zonealarm because I like its ability to control outgoing packets. It's a good way to find out if some program is trying to call home. Zonealarm is much better than nothing, but 1 prefer open source solutions. Besides, it is overkill - I don't use it as a firewall, since I have a router, and it uses several megabytes of RAM. Better still would be a reverse honeypot - an app that catches outgoing requests, tests them against a database of known offending addresses and/or ports, and (optionally) tricks the offending application into thinking it has successfully phoned home. XP users in particular might be interested in such a tool."

Comments

Re:Router?

[Asprin]

In all due fairness (and with an extra heaping helping of nitpick on the side), none of the products (ZA, BlackIce, TPF, firmware *shudder* "routers") is a firewall. A firewall is an entirely different animal. Look, I have a "router" myself, and I love it - but it's not a router and it's not a firewall, it's a NAT device. It does NAT and proxies a few services if needed, but it doesn't do the same things routers and firewalls do. I know *why* we've started calling them routers, but that doesn't diminish the fact that the language is being lost here because LinkSys is not interested in explaining to Joe Homeuser what NAT is.

Now, having said that, I would also point out that my gripe here is almost entirely with the verbage. most home users do not need an actual firewall; NAT + PacketFilter + Don't-blindly-click-OK-on-EULAs is quite sufficient.

Ok, I got that off my chest -- bitch mode=off, and you can now all go back to trolling. :)

Re:personal firewall API?

[ameoba]

I get the feeling that most people with the knowlege & skill requried to write a firewall for windows would much rather put up a linux/bsd machine, with an already tested, robust firewall, to do the job, unless they plan on selling it.

That's the catch with open source; people only work on projects they're interested in, and things (such as windows firewalls) that capable people aren't interested in, get passed up. ...and nobody looks forward to doing win32 API (or lower level) interactions with windows.