Firewalls

Once upon a time a firewall was a physical barrier that kept a literal fire from spreading from one building to another. Now the term is more often used to refer to a variety of devices - both hardware and software - meant to keep information from being stolen from a computer. This paper examines the variety of commercial firewalls that are available today.

Initially firewalls were separate pieces of hardware; this is becoming less and less the case in part because firewalls are now more frequently installed on home computers as well as on business ones, and many users of computers at home either do not have the space for or the expertise for a hardware firewall, which has given rise to the two varieties:

firewall is a piece of hardware or software that places a barrier between your network and the Internet. It prevents outsiders from accessing...
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