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Cable Modem Privacy / Security
The Problem:
Cable modems are by far the most popular broad band Internet access at the moment -- they´re being much faster deployed and at lower costs than DSL or other, more expensive technologies. With this, however comes a problem -- cable modems share a connection with other people in your neighborhood, creating the equivelant of an office network (a LAN, or Local Area Network).
Because the cable modems use a LAN to share a high-speed connection, other cable modem users in your neighborhood could potentially read your files (and your connection speed drops as more people sign on to cable service, but that´s another issue).
The Symptoms:
If you´re using Windows 95 or 98 (we won´t address UNIX or Linux because they usually aren´t compatible with cable modems off the shelf), you may see hands with blue sleeves holding your hard drive or some folders -- this is a sign of a problem. If you don´t see these hands and blue sleeves, you probably don´t have a problem.
The Solution:
All you have to do is turn off file sharing. To do this, just follow these steps:
- Open My Computer.
- Open the Control Panel.
- Open the Network dialog box from Control Panel.
- Click on the File and Print Sharing button.
- Uncheck the boxes next to all options and click Okay.
- Click Okay again.
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