Router - Tracing Your Packets

Few people will really care about the path that your packet takes when sending a message, but if you're one of those high tech egg heads then this article may be of great interest to you. It can become very addictive so proceed with caution.

If you're using a Microsoft Windows based operation system, then it's very easy to trace the route that your message has taken. Not only that, you can see exactly how many routers it took to get your message from point A to point B. You can do this by using a program that is on your computer called Traceroute. That is exactly what the program does. It traces the route a message takes to get to its final destination.

To run the program you have to go to a DOS prompt. After doing this, go to the C:\windows directory and type tracert followed by the URL of the Internet site you're connected to at the time. It will give you a rather technical spec sheet of every IP address it stopped at along the way until it got to its final destination.

The first number on the spec sheet tells you how many routers it went through to get to its final destination. Then each individual router listed on the page is numbered from 1 down to the last one which is actually the final destination. The next 3 numbers on each line for each router shows how long the packet took to get to that router. The next piece of information on each line is the actual name of the router the information went through. Yes, routers have names. This may be important to the users but is totally irrelevant to the router itself. Finally, the last piece of info on each line is the actual IP address of the router itself.

The amount of time it takes information to get from one router to another varies depending on how much traffic there is on that route at the time. Normally, it is no more than a couple of seconds. But occasionally, it can be longer. That is why sometimes you will be trying to access a web site and it seems to take forever. This can be for a number of reasons, but usually it is because along the way one of the routers is not working correctly and has to be bypassed. Sometimes the actual final location itself is down or having problems and the delay is the last router in the chain trying to connect to the network.

Traceroute is not limited to just checking the number of routers between you and an Internet site. You can use it to check the number of routers between you and any other computer on a network. As long as you know the IP address of the other computer you can trace the route of the packets between you and the other computer.

In our next instalment we're going to look at how routers handle denial of service attacks and other problems.

Condoms for Your PC

Well, maybe you won't really put a condom on your PC, but what you do need is good protection. Today, that means a firewall, an anti-virus product, and an anti-spyware product. You need to have them in place and you need to keep them up-to-date. For anti-virus and anti-spyware products, keeping them both up-to-date is nearly as important as frequent scanning with them. Since we don't know what new viruses and spyware are lurking until they are created, the companies with anti-virus and anti-spyware products are always behind those who create malware. Only when a new malware item appears, can we get updates to prevent it from getting on our PCs or to remove it once it is there.

What else can we do to have a safe PC? There is a lot we can do. Let's examine some categories:

ACCOUNTS - Use an account that does NOT have administrative privileges. That way, if someone breaks into your PC, there is some damage control. Also, avoid the use of the account names which are created by default. Those are "administrator" and "guest." Consider one account with administrative privileges for when you need to have those privileges, but use another account that doesnot have administrative privileges for your normal work.

PASSWORDS - Use passwords that give you protection. Try to make them 6-8 characters in length with a combination of letters (upper and lower case) and numbers. Avoid names of family, friends, and pets. Consider a trick like the first letter of each word of a sentence. It will NOT spell a word. For example, the first letter of each word of this sentence, "Read this first article on save PC," would result in the password of "RtfaosP." It is not a word, it is a reasonable length, difficult to guess, but easy to remember.

DISK CLEANUP - While not a virus or spyware prevention tool, this MS Windows utility can reclaim available disk space from the recycle bin, temporary files, and deleted files. With regular use, this utility can keep more disk space available.

DISK DEFRAGMENTATION - This MS Windows utility can reorganize disk space to put related files together for faster access. As files are written to disk space, they may not fit one-after-the-other. When that happens, the files are "fragmented." The defragmentation process moves files in an effort to put related files next to each other. That means that more data that you want for a particular file can be read at once - translating into better performance. The first time that this utility is run, the disk space probably will be badly fragmented and the process will take a long time. When the disk space is kept in better order, the process will take little time.

MICROSOFT CRITICAL PATCHES -To keep up-to-date with the "critical patches" for an operating system from Microsoft is not so simple as it would seem. Microsoft offers two choices: 1) use an automated update that will send the critical patches" when they are released, or 2) do a The larger issue, however, is that you give up control of what patches will be installed. Whatever is released for your system will be installed. That may create problems because some "critical patches" may cause parts of your system to not work correctly. It becomes a difficult decision: keep PCs up-to-date with all available "critical patches" and risk a situation where PCs may fail to function, or do NOT install "critical patches" immediately and risk a situation where worms/viruses infect not only some PCs but have the potential for spreading the problems. If you choose to do a manual update, how can you be assured that all PCs are updated on a timely basis? The choice seems to be in favor of the automated update from Microsoft.