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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: August 11th, 2023
  • lemmy_user_838586@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Can someone demystify computer Ports for me? Please? Blocking, unblocking, opening, allowing, VPNs and their effect, what ports are and what they do, step by step, when you have to interact with them?
    102·
    9 months ago

    Ports are just ways for applications to communicate data amongst themselves or other computers, networks, internet etc. They’re represented by a number, and there are well known standards for certain ports, like HTTP web traffic is most commonly over port 80, HTTPS encrypted web traffic is usually over port 443, etc.

    The reason for ports is it allows the ability to lock down a computer or networked device from external communication (like computers on the same network, or the internet) and only allow certain applications to have outbound or inbound traffic and data communication, thus increasing security from malware, hackers, unwanted snooping, etc.

    For example, by leaving the web browsing ports open, but blocking all other ports, you can communicate over the internet, but not share all of your images from your “Pictures” or “Documents” folders on your device, thus keeping you safe.

    Every computing device, phone, tablet, etc has ports that can be opened and closed, even the Operating System running on your device, or even your router. When you’re reading articles about opening or blocking ports, its usually talking about how to open ports on your router so in incoming or outgoing application connection trying to communicate from/to internet and your computer can establish a connection through your routers and not be blocked. Or how to open those same ports on your Operating System, so the connection can be established from the internet, though your router, through your OS, to the application running on your computer. Ports are usually blocked by default, and you need to open them, though the standard ones (like web traffic, port 80, 443 are usually defaulted to open for convenience sake)

    A VPN, is a Virtual Private Network, it allows you to create a network of computers or devices that aren’t actually on the same physical network. For example, we could make a VPN between your computer and mine, and they would be able to see each other, transfer files between themselves, etc, just like we were in the same home, on the same network. The VPN’s are established over a port, and use a port to communicate, so you’d most likely need to open the port on your router and computer Operating System to establish the connection.

    Most of remote connections for business, are done through a VPN. When you work from home, but are able to see the internal resources from your company, a lot of times its achieved with a VPN.

    The word “Private” in Virtual Private Network, means that that the connection is encrypted and people can’t see the traffic going between the devices in this ‘virtual network’ traveling over the internet. People can also use this to their advantage and use a VPN in other ways, such as hiding traffic from illegal behavior, such as hiding pirating movies and music, from their internet provider. Their computer is connected to a random server connected by the VPN, they go to the pirate bay, request to download a movie, the request comes from the other computer connected in the VPN, and is sent to their computer, with their internet provider being none-the-wiser. The internet provider (for example Comcast), can’t see their customer downloaded a movie illegally

  • lemmy_user_838586@lemmy.mltoLinux@lemmy.ml•Rant: My recent experience of trying to install windows for gaming and why I'm really thankful for Linux
    21·
    10 months ago

    I think the problem stems from the time period in Windows history where we transitioned from “the user has to install all drivers from a CD/manufacturers website” to “windows goes and finds drivers for you”, to what windows does now, where it grabs the correct drivers for you (I think? I don’t use windows anymore).

    That intermediary step where windows would do a windows update and grab drivers Willy nilly for you and they weren’t correct, would mean, if you didn’t have a video card driver installed, then, yes, windows would install one for you But not the correct one for your card, it would install a generic one, so you have some amount of 2d/3d support. You could get the correct resolution for your HD monitor, or watch videos without stuttering, bit it did not give you the full 3d support for your card. So gaming wouldn’t work well. So once again, if you knew what you were doing, you had to ignore the fact that windows found a driver and installed it, and you had to hunt down the correct driver for your video card, from manufacturer website and install that.

    Windows used to the the same stuff with sound cards too. You’d have a Creative sound blaster, 5.1 blah, blah, blah. And windows would install a generic sound card driver that maybe gave you like 2.1 sound or maybe it gave you all 5.1, but didn’t install the control panel from Creative so you couldn’t configure your card at all. So yes, your card, technically worked, but it didn’t work correctly, unless you knew enough to install the manufacturers driver instead.

    Now I think windows just pulls down a some 3rd party software center from intel, or nvidia, etc, that scans your hardware, and grabs the correct driver for you. But that intermediary step before we got here? Caused a lot of confusion.