Summary

The home network is the next generation of home user activity. Now that a desktop or two is in just about every home, the home user is becoming more educated and sophisticated in the usage of networking technology. DSL, cable modems, and wireless connectivity are allowing faster connections that make sharing of one Internet connection in the household feasible. The days of struggling with a 28.8 or 56Kbps connection are slowly coming to a close.

Home networking technology is clearly necessary. You have to protect yourself and your entire environment; with great power comes great responsibility. You are now responsible for an entire network (which might only be two or three computers). Your always-on connectivity for your family means you have to have security procedures in place at all times.

Many personal firewalls are available on the market today that can protect your systems. A combination of different firewalls can help, but you want to keep your network design simple. The more complicated you make the system, the more problems can develop in the environment. Although many small personal firewalls might be sufficient to protect one computer, network technology does require some complex filtering rules. Think carefully about what you want to accomplish with a network and what your firewall should do for you.

A significant part of home network technology is setting up security measures to combat the hackers who will target your systems. You have to become knowledgeable in security testing and implementation procedures. You cannot rely on your ISP to help you because it won't. It's up to you to test your implementations before the bad guys do.