Australian Development Gateway

The Australian Development Gateway (ADG) strives to support members of the development community in their efforts to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development in the Asia Pacific region. The site has been created with participation from members of government, private, academia and non-government organisations. User feedback mechanisms have been incorporated to guide future directions of the site. The site is optimised for low bandwidth access to enable the widest participation throughout the Asia Pacific region.

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Internet security and privacy

Understanding and using firewalls

A firewall is a hardware device or software application that sits between your computer and the Internet and blocks all Internet traffic from reaching your computer that you have not specifically requested. What this means is that if you browse to a web site, the firewall will allow the traffic from that web site to reach your computer and therefore yourself.

On the other hand, if you did not request information from that web site, and the web site sent traffic to you, it would be denied from reaching your computer because you did not specifically ask for it. This behavior can be changed if you wish, and we will discuss that further in the document.

This tutorial will help to increase your knowledge on how to protect yourself with a firewall so you are not an easy target to hackers and viruses in the future.

 

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