Question about Cable modem security

rustedborg

I like to think I know more than the average Joe when it comes to Macs, but I must confess that my knowledge is limited when it comes to internet connections.



Heck, I was still using a dial-up connection until early this year. I am currently using Road Runner from Time Warner Cable for my internet needs. Road Runner is much faster than my old dial-up, but the speed has been all over the map recently.



Sometimes everything runs at warp speed, and other times things are barely running faster than my old dial-up.



This may sound stupid, but could the speed problem be caused by someone trying to mess with my computer via the cable modem?



I am currently running Jaguar on a Pismo (500MHz Firewire) with 1Gig of RAM. I still have the original 12Gig internal hard drive and I'm also using a 120Gig external firewire hard drive (7200rpm). Other than the default security setting in Internet Explorer and the default security settings from Road Runner (if any), I haven't done anything to "secure" my cable modem connection. The slow downs happen even when I'm not running other aplications (no quicktime, no Photoshop, etc.).



So, am I just being stupid thinking that a lack of security is causing the weird changes in speed? If so, what else could be causing the shifts in speed?

jimdreamworx

Cable modems are usually hooked up to a network hub. And a hub, unlike a switch, shares bandwidth. One of the reasons for the slowdown is that any computer hooked up to the same hub as you that might have spyware (some Windoze box with someone downloading MP3s) will slow down everyone else whenever this computer is on.



By "hub", I mean that provided by your ISP. If you're in a house, could be the houses on your block. In an apartment, could be all the folks on your floor and some of the others (small apt would probably have the one hub).

thuh freak

Quote:

could the speed problem be caused by someone trying to mess with my computer via the cable modem?

yes, in theory, but in all likeliness no, for several reasons:



first, theres the internet problems. on a cable modem you are basically sharing your connection with your area (probably a few blocks in your neighborhood, or however much time warner cares to split it among). at peak times (when most people are on the internet, particularly people in your neighborhood), you're internet will be slower than at nonpeak times. but, you'll also have to factor in server speeds. whichever sites you are connecting to have a certain amount of bandwidth (X bytes per second), which is split between everyone who is accessing the site at the time (and its not necessarily split evenly). so if server has 1MB/s of bandwidth, and has 10 users who all have really good internet connections, each user will probably get about 0.1MB/s (100KB/s). In actuality, a server usually serves a lot more than 10 people, and server speeds can vary wildly. Also, the other users will have various kinds of internet connections and speeds, so some will be connecting faster (and using that server's bandwidth) and some will be going slower (using less bandwidth). Server computers often run several server applications simultaneously, which may affect its processing abilities (so the bottle neck may not even be the internet, but the server's internals). Then again, other server programs may be using more bandwidth than whatever server program u are trying to access. Even if you could run a restrictive test, between two known servers, with nothing running, and test for speed and such, there are more factors that figure in. Internet traffic is sent across the world wide web. A million different kinds of servers are relaying traffic to eachother to send/receive your data. And, sometimes your data will go across different avenues as it traverses the internet. Basically, there are a lot of factors that contribute to download/upload speeds, and most of them are out of your control. Basically, there are a lot of factors that contribute to download/upload speeds, and most of them are out of your control.



The second reason is macs are extremely secure. By default, i think, there are no open holes. Meaning, if you haven't turned on any servers of your own (like in the Sharing panel of System Preferences), then its virtually impossible for an evil person to get into your computer.



thirdly, a hacker would have little or no interest in accessing your computer (presumably). most people don't have much secure information, and for a hacker to pick out who does, then try to hack them, is laborious. it takes extra effort to break into a mac too, and then they'd have to deal with the recovering the secure information which would likely be in slightly different formats than they are used to.



fourth, if a person does get into your computer they would probably do everything they can to hide it. slowing down your computer would be too obvious.



if you are getting really terrible download/upload speeds at unpeak times, on known, fast servers who are known to be serving a small group of users, you may have cause for concern. but its highly likely that its the internet's fault (in an unfixable way), and not a hacker.

graphicump

RoadRunner is notorious for speeds all over the map. The reason is the way RR does bandwidth sharing, which differs a bit from, say, Comcast.



I doubt it's someone messing with you through your cable modem, but do you have Jaguar's built-in firewall turned on (2nd tab under Sharing preference)? If not, do so.