From: Jeffrey Goldberg on
On 10-06-20 8:54 PM, Phillip Jones wrote:
> Mike Lane wrote:

>> I don't have a home network or a router. My computer simply
>> connects directly via an ethernet cable to a cable modem which
>> plugs into my local cable company's socket.

> Ugh! That a no-no that about the most insecure way to have an internet
> connection over cable or DSL. You always use a router in between. This
> adds layer of protection.

Phillip, I would have concurred and would have given Mike instructions
on addressing had not the traceroute that he provided let me know he is
behind some router doing NAT.

> You not sure your cable modem doesn't a Router built in

His cable modem probably does have a router built in. I was a bit
alarmed when I first saw his message, but since I was asking for a
traceroute anyway, I figured that I would learn the actual situation
before alarming Mike.

The first hop in the traceroute was

1 * 10.133.140.1 (10.133.140.1)

Most likely that is the IP of his modem/router. It is possible that
that is on the other end of the line, which means that in the worst
case, Mike is exposed to all other Virgin Media customers using that
same router. That wouldn't be good, but it is certainly much better
than having his machine connected directly to the public Internet.

Mike, would you mind taking a look at your cable modem and telling us
what the make and model is? Then we will be in a better position to advise.

Also, the only machine in your house is your Mac, then go to System
Preferences > Security > Firewall and check the box to block all
incoming connections. Then go to Sharing and turn everything off.

Depending on your answer to the make and model of your cable modem, I
and others here will advise you to purchase a very simple router. I
don't know what they cost in England, so I'll leave it to others here to
make specific recommendations, but if you don't have any kind of
internal network or wireless, the absolute simplest and cheapest thing
will do.

(my previous posts in this thread were probably more in line with me
representing Agile Web Solutions. Now I'm just being me.)

Cheers,

-j


--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
From: Mark Bestley on
Jeffrey Goldberg <nobody(a)goldmark.org> wrote:

> On 10-06-20 6:07 PM, Mike Lane wrote:
> > Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Jun 20, 2010:
>
> >> Would you mind running [...]
>
> > No problem!
>
> Thank you very much. Until now I thought the problem in the UK was
> limited to Sky and Tiscali. Now I see Virgin Media as well.
>
> I don't really have a good enough sample, but I think that all of the UK
> reports I've seen for which I have a location are in The North. You are
> in Yorkshire, I've seen a problem from "near Manchester" and I think
> there was another somewhere east of Liverpool (I'll have to go back and
> check on these reports). One of our staff is in Leeds, but he hasn't
> been able to duplicate the problem.
>
> We've also know that there some users in Ireland, Norway and Italy have
> been affected. (We had declared this a problem in "northwest Europe"
> before we saw the reports from Italy).
>
> Anyway, thanks for your help.
>

However I have been reading from
http://support.agilewebsolutions.com/index.php recently with no problems
and my ISP is VirginMedia with the same DNS settings. But I am in the
south in London

--
Mark
From: Mike Lane on
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Jun 21, 2010:

> On 10-06-20 8:54 PM, Phillip Jones wrote:
>> Mike Lane wrote:
>
>>> I don't have a home network or a router. My computer simply
>>> connects directly via an ethernet cable to a cable modem which
>>> plugs into my local cable company's socket.
>
>> Ugh! That a no-no that about the most insecure way to have an internet
>> connection over cable or DSL. You always use a router in between. This
>> adds layer of protection.
>
> Phillip, I would have concurred and would have given Mike instructions
> on addressing had not the traceroute that he provided let me know he is
> behind some router doing NAT.
>
>> You not sure your cable modem doesn't a Router built in
>
> His cable modem probably does have a router built in. I was a bit
> alarmed when I first saw his message, but since I was asking for a
> traceroute anyway, I figured that I would learn the actual situation
> before alarming Mike.
>
> The first hop in the traceroute was
>
> 1 * 10.133.140.1 (10.133.140.1)
>
> Most likely that is the IP of his modem/router. It is possible that
> that is on the other end of the line, which means that in the worst
> case, Mike is exposed to all other Virgin Media customers using that
> same router. That wouldn't be good, but it is certainly much better
> than having his machine connected directly to the public Internet.
>
> Mike, would you mind taking a look at your cable modem and telling us
> what the make and model is? Then we will be in a better position to advise.
>
> Also, the only machine in your house is your Mac, then go to System
> Preferences > Security > Firewall and check the box to block all
> incoming connections. Then go to Sharing and turn everything off.
>
> Depending on your answer to the make and model of your cable modem, I
> and others here will advise you to purchase a very simple router. I
> don't know what they cost in England, so I'll leave it to others here to
> make specific recommendations, but if you don't have any kind of
> internal network or wireless, the absolute simplest and cheapest thing
> will do.
>

My cable modem is one supplied by the cable company and is their own model -
pictured here:
http://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/troubleshooting/cant-connect-lights-
256.php

It's made for Virgin Media them by Ambit, I believe, and I think is known as
a model 255 or 256. That's not much help I'm afraid.



--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
email: mike_lane at mac dot com

From: Jeffrey Goldberg on
On 10-06-21 4:59 AM, Mark Bestley wrote:
> Jeffrey Goldberg<nobody(a)goldmark.org> wrote:

>> I don't really have a good enough sample, but I think that all of the UK
>> reports I've seen for which I have a location are in The North. You are
>> in Yorkshire, I've seen a problem from "near Manchester" and I think
>> there was another somewhere east of Liverpool (I'll have to go back and
>> check on these reports). One of our staff is in Leeds, but he hasn't
>> been able to duplicate the problem.

> However I have been reading from
> http://support.agilewebsolutions.com/index.php recently with no problems
> and my ISP is VirginMedia with the same DNS settings. But I am in the
> south in London

Thanks, Mark. That is very helpful. What appears to be a single DNS
server (like the ones that both your and Mike were using) may often be
several that are geographically distributed. This makes the actual
cause of the problem even harder to track down.

Cheers,

-j

--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
From: Phillip Jones on
Mike Lane wrote:
> Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Jun 21, 2010:
>
>> On 10-06-20 8:54 PM, Phillip Jones wrote:
>>> Mike Lane wrote:
>>
>>>> I don't have a home network or a router. My computer simply
>>>> connects directly via an ethernet cable to a cable modem which
>>>> plugs into my local cable company's socket.
>>
>>> Ugh! That a no-no that about the most insecure way to have an internet
>>> connection over cable or DSL. You always use a router in between. This
>>> adds layer of protection.
>>
>> Phillip, I would have concurred and would have given Mike instructions
>> on addressing had not the traceroute that he provided let me know he is
>> behind some router doing NAT.
>>
>>> You not sure your cable modem doesn't a Router built in
>>
>> His cable modem probably does have a router built in. I was a bit
>> alarmed when I first saw his message, but since I was asking for a
>> traceroute anyway, I figured that I would learn the actual situation
>> before alarming Mike.
>>
>> The first hop in the traceroute was
>>
>> 1 * 10.133.140.1 (10.133.140.1)
>>
>> Most likely that is the IP of his modem/router. It is possible that
>> that is on the other end of the line, which means that in the worst
>> case, Mike is exposed to all other Virgin Media customers using that
>> same router. That wouldn't be good, but it is certainly much better
>> than having his machine connected directly to the public Internet.
>>
>> Mike, would you mind taking a look at your cable modem and telling us
>> what the make and model is? Then we will be in a better position to advise.
>>
>> Also, the only machine in your house is your Mac, then go to System
>> Preferences> Security> Firewall and check the box to block all
>> incoming connections. Then go to Sharing and turn everything off.
>>
>> Depending on your answer to the make and model of your cable modem, I
>> and others here will advise you to purchase a very simple router. I
>> don't know what they cost in England, so I'll leave it to others here to
>> make specific recommendations, but if you don't have any kind of
>> internal network or wireless, the absolute simplest and cheapest thing
>> will do.
>>
>
> My cable modem is one supplied by the cable company and is their own model -
> pictured here:
> http://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/troubleshooting/cant-connect-lights-
> 256.php
>
> It's made for Virgin Media them by Ambit, I believe, and I think is known as
> a model 255 or 256. That's not much help I'm afraid.
>
>
>

I went to the Mac Troubleshooting section of the website and run across
the following: (notice what I have highlighted in the screenshot)

http://screencast.com/t/NzQwNzIyYjUt

It does not have a Router Built in.


--
Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. "If it's Fixed, Don't Break it"
http://www.phillipmjones.net mailto:pjones1(a)kimbanet.com