Securing your machine

[razibog]

Greetings,

I have searched around the site a little, but didn't find anything that would satisfy me.
I am currently working on securing my laptop, im working on iptables (if you have any better suggestions, do tell, gonna use APF, as suggestion of a friend, could also set it up manually, if it speeds up anything), next stop is the stuff outside my home, i want to set up a proxy / vpn / ssh tunnel, i currently have tor installed, no fancy settings yet, any tips on what do to next, which is the best option?
Have seen some recommendations elsewhere, but all for windows :/

Cheers, razi.

[tremor77]

You probably should of state that your running a linux lappy but I inferred from the mention of iptables.... what distro? Ubuntu? What types of optional things do you want to run on it?

A couple of quick things to do would be to close up everything you DONT want running. Learn what services and processes can run you a barebones install. If they aren't running then for the most part they are not a threat. (apache, ssh, telnet and mail servers - I don't see why you'd have them on a laptop anyway, but unless you want them make sure they be off).

I probably sound like a broken record for at-home networking defense nothing beats a nice hardware firewall configured between your cable or dsl modem and your home network. Even SoHo crap like a Linksys or Netgear Wireless Router comes with a standard routing and access control panel that can help you lock down traffic if you know what you are doing.

A little info on your setup could help someone be more specific.

[razibog]

Running Arch linux with dwm.

I want to use it for fooling around the internet and nearby networks, besides that, coding and browsing, so no servers running or anything like that.

I also have a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with Tomato firmware running from my modem, distributing wifi across the house.

[mShred]

Running Arch linux with dwm.

Good choice.

I want to use it for fooling around the internet and nearby networks, besides that, coding and browsing, so no servers running or anything like that.

For that, I'd suggest Backtrack.