

That’s why you need to use specific apps on your devices to access those cameras, and why they use encrypted communication (at least, they should!) to ensure that the data’s private. You don’t want someone remotely accessing your Ring doorbell or baby cam, not to mention your computer’s hard drive or smartphone text message history!īefore you panic, however, all of the devices I’ve mentioned have built-in safeguards and protocols in place to ensure invalid requests are summarily rejected.

Once queries can come into your network, however, that means your devices have to differentiate between valid and legitimate data and malicious requests. Visit a web site and it’s a back-and-forth dialog between your Web browser, operating system, modem, and a far distant server returning text, photos, animations, even streaming video.Ĭertainly an Internet connection would be terribly boring if you could only send, but couldn’t receive! In a lot of ways, that’s the way the ‘net works overall. This means that queries and requests can come from outside your network to specific devices, including your computer. Q: I’ve become increasingly paranoid about my home network security and am wondering what a firewall is and whether I should enable the one on my router? Dave TaylorĪ: It’s always good when people are aware that their Internet connection is a two-way street.
