.

Just browsing through here, but I'm surprised (and then again, I'm NOT surprised) at the answers thus far. I get the same replies when I ask a similar question.

What the submitter is talking about is a 21st Century Firewall (capitalized out of reverence). Why not have automatic host discovery? Why should I have to painstakingly come up with a list of all target machines with IP addresses? Is this not 2010? :)

Did everyone miss the question about "jdoe's" computer being connected, and then (and ONLY then) her needed ports being enabled in some other PC on the network? That would actually be a VERY nice capability.

For the record, I've looked at IPCop; Shorewall; SuSEFirewall2; the firewall tools built into Webmin; (and years ago) Mandrake's firewall package; you name it (this is just a partial list off the top of my head). All of them follow the same paradigm: YOU must come up with the list of IPs and ports. If anything moves or changes, YOU have to painstakingly re-enter all of the port/IP info (and hope you didn't miss something!).

So-called GUI interfaces and/or firewall "builder" tools still follow this same basic config paradigm. Just adding automatic discovery would be a HUGE help ... simply put, someone connects a machine, the firewall says, "new PC added at 192.168.1.100, DHCP, it's exposing ports 100, 200 and 500."

Everything I've tried thus far can't even reliably list all PCs on the network! I have to run an NMAP discovery or (under Windoze) something like the Angry IP Scanner. It doesn't make sense.

Some of what the submitter is asking would most properly be done in a really smart firewall/network switch combination. You would probably have to install a small software package on each network machine, too, that could "talk" to the firewall. But the question remains, why isn't this kind of thing available? It *IS* a little surprising (and frustrating) the someone hasn't developed a point-and-click, self-discovering, self-cataloging firewall system by now.

I think the real problem is that true propeller-headed geeks actually *enjoy* poking in stuff with iptables rules at a prompt. They're the most likely to have the skills to develop something like a true GUI firewall, but they're the least likely to want to.

Alcohol's a cross between not-that-bad and impossible to regulate.

We seem to be doing a better job of it than heroin.

Heroin is pretty fucking toxic.

Heroin is actually quite non-toxic. If your breathing is supported, you can survive pretty much any level of an opiate. It's not toxic to the liver, or pretty much any other organ.

We're talking a chemical with no benefit, that makes you literally need it all the time to even stay on a normal level once you're hooked

But it's worth mentioning that with dependence comes tolerance. When an opiate addict is maintained on the dose they need, they can carry out an otherwise normal life. Dr. William Halsted, for instance, had a brilliant surgical career and co-founded Johns Hopkins while maintaining himself on morphine. That doesn't happen with alcoholics.

if you cut it off completely after a certain point, you die from withdrawal.

That is simply not true. Unless your health is already seriously compromised it is not possible to die from opiate withdrawal.

Heroin will do it way easy; and the natural course of exposure is to tend towards that addiction, strongly. It's also much easier to overdose.

It's pretty easy to avoid an overdose, if you know what dose you're taking. Problem is, black market heroin is un-measured. Someone who could drop into a pharmacy and pick up a premeasured dose of heroin would be very unlikely to die from overdose.

This is a different problem than liquor, just like carrying a small rocket launcher is a different problem than carrying a 6 bullet revolver.

It's different, but not altogether worse. Heroin is easier to get addicted to, but the addiction is not as bad. Alcohol makes people more violent. Heroin makes people very mellow. It's easier to overdose on heroin, but you don't see the same sort of chronic toxicity you do with alcohol. You can't objectively claim that one is worse than another.