[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Some of the Things I Would Like to Know:
- The Obvious (Is Not Obvious To Me): How do I figure out my IP address?

Your IP address is part of everything you do on the net. I can see your IP address in your Posts (though I think thats only a moderator button), and in your emails, and in Posts you do to newsGroups. Any website you visit can see your IP address. Just about any connection you make has your IP in it although most programs (email browsers newsgroup) doesnt show it to you becuase if figures you are interested in all that.

But yes if you are a dialup connection then you get a different IP everytime you dial in. There are alot of ways to find out such as using your control panel in windows. But the easiest is probably using the fact that websites see your address. There are alot of sites that will tell you what they see. Try this one...
http://iso.hsc.wvu.edu/ip.asp

(I dont need that if it is PBEM, right?)

No you dont need it for PBEM

How do I figure out which "Port" to use?

Actually you can use any of over 65000 ports that arent already in use. The problem is that some ports are known to be used by certain programs and can report that you are running things you arent. Such as a port which might cause your ISP to think you are infected, or cause people who are searching to think you are running a service susceptable to attack. For me I stick between 7001-8000 which seems pretty unused.

- Safety: Someone told me that if others find out my IP address and port information, they can "hack" my computer, that I should never let others know this. Is this true? So when hosting a DII game, I am making an exception for nice DomII players who will never hack me because they are per definitionem cute and cuddly and friendly etc., or is there some trick I must know?

**growl**. Sorry but thats a pet peeve for me. The proper term is "crack" not hack. Only tv/movies/newsmedia mix up hacker and crackers.

But thats beside the point. The information you were given is true enough but not really a big deal. As I already covered your IP address is not secret info if you are using the internet. And its more of a worry for people who have the same IP all the time like DSL and Cable Users. Also, attacks tend to come because a search found a program running which is vulnerable. Crackers will probe thru huge blocks of IP numbers to see if certain programs are running then come back to test and see if they are properly patched. If you ran your game on a port which seems to be one of those programs then you might get a return test but even then they would find out that you arent running what they think. I doubt very much that anyone would recognize Dominions2 and certainly would have no idea how to use it to reach anything else on your machine. Dont worry, your machine is made much more susceptable by things like Outlook Express than by Dominions2.

Does somehow a "router" come into play here, and can that cause problems?

Pros and Cons to security. There is such as thing as a ridiculous amount of security. Routers, hubs, firewalls, virus scanners, etc etc. All can add to your security but if you stack every security thing that you ever hear of then it can get in the way of you doing things you want to use the computer for. You may have to take an extra effort to learn the thing you are using as security in order to find out how to tell it that you want to let certain people come thru on certain ports.

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[ March 29, 2004, 15:26: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]