roto

On the topic of standalone linux firewall distros, I find smoothwall express works great. I have it running on a p200 w/64 megs and it runs great. Could probably get away with a pentium 75 and 32 megs. http://www.smoothwall.org Not sure what you mean by security holes in the linksys routing tables, but I got rid of my linksys for the smoothwall because it was a piece of garbage and had to be power cycled at least a few times a week. Uptime on the smoothwall is around 50 days now and I haven't touched it.

I use powweb as well. I don't really use any of their features. I just use it as a way to host large files to transfer among friends and such. Seems uber fast to me, I can upload to them at about 130kB/sec, and I can download from them at well over 500kB/sec. No complaints here. I've been using them for about a year now.

Ok, so you know how to change the mac address on the router? If you use a linksys, there should be a tab called mac addr clone, or something along those lines. This is where you enter the mac address that you want to appear on the wan. And once it's changed, leave it for as long as you want the ip. When you want to change your ip again, change the mac by 1 character, as many new ips as you want Just a side note, you can only enter valid hex characters in that field, so 0-9, and A-f ie, 00:A7:09:FF:3D:11 Also, from your connection details, it shows that the lease time is 4 days. So theoretically, after 4 days of using a different mac address, you should be able to revert back to your original one, and get a different ip altogether. cheers

Ok... so if I understand what you're saying there, the nic and the xbox are set to use the same ip? That shouldn't be. I would check and if the xbox is using 192.168.0.1 with a mask of 255.255.255.0, make sure the realtek card is using 192.168.0.2 with the same mask. Also, remove the default gateway from the realtek card, you don't need it.

Also depends on how long the lease time set by your provider is. If you don't have anything powered on and connected to the modem (computer, router whatever) for the duration of the lease, it will expire. And chances are you will have a diff ip the next time you are on.

Just to clarify... If you obtain your ip automatically from your isp that is DYNAMIC. If you enter your ip manually and it never changes, that is STATIC.... seems you have your terms backwards. Anywho, changing your ip is pretty straightforward on a cable network. The easiest way is to change the MAC address of the device connected to the cable modem. If you use a router, most have that feature in the config. If you connect your computer directly to the cable modem, you can change the nic card, thus changing your mac address, et voila, a new ip. Cheers

how exactly would that help any future virus outbreaks?

It is factually sound, but it's also a totally slanted view. Left wing propaganda. The TRUTH is about halfway between the bs thats on CNN and this movie