pender

Another free Multiplayer only FPS for Windows is Urban Terror. It is "like" Counter Strike and runs off the Quake 3 engine but does not need Q3 as a base. Q3 was OpenGL so it can run on Wine too. One of my old time favs is also free, Starsiege Tribes. It is one of the most fun and balanced FPS I have ever played. You can fly and get vehicles (air) and do all sorts of things like attack or build up defence for your base or just go ouot and kill. It is D3D and OpenGL rendered as well. Tribes 2 is now free but Sierra only gives out a few CD-Keys every months. Tribes 1 requires no key. Peolpe still play it and it should run on any junker smoothly (DX7 gen or older I believe). Of course there are free demos for Unreal Tournaments, Quakes etc...

I don't think Protocol Encryption protects you completely. My understanding is that the encryption only ciphers the TCP header so the ISP can't detect and throttle packets with BT protocol headers. THey can still see your activity from the BT tracker. This is why you should use a private tracker or a public tracker (and client) that supports TLS/HTTPS Peerguardian will only block MPAA/RIAA agencies that masquerade on BT and P2P swarms. It will not block your ISP.

I don't think Protocol Encryption protects you completely. My understanding is that the encryption only ciphers the TCP header so the ISP can't detect and throttle packets with the BT protocol. THey can still see your activity from the BT tracker. This is why you should use a private tracker or a public tracker (and client) that supports TLS/HTTPS Peerguardian will only block MPAA/RIAA agencies that masquerade on BT and P2P swarms. It will not block your ISP.

I don't think Protocol Encryption protects you completely. My understanding is that the encryption only ciphers the TCP header so the ISP can't detect and throttle packets with the BT protocol. THey can still see your activity from the BT tracker. This is why you should use a private tracker or a public tracker (and client) that supports TLS/HTTPS Peerguardian will only block MPAA/RIAA agencies that masquerade on BT and P2P swarms. It will not block your ISP.

As they said, TOR, SSH. Try Hotspot Shield. It is free and offers encryption as well as US IP addresses. Bandwidth is great for free version compared to TOR. Downside it the free version puts an Ad on your Web Browser.

There is some truth that WEP is enough to deter war drivers. THe main advantage of WPA/WPA2-PSK AES is that the bandwidth is not hampered by the encryption/decryption process as all devices that support WPA-PSK AES have dedicated encrypting/decrypting hardware. WEP and WPA-PSK TKIP have actual real world bandwidth reduced TO a third of full potential. AES is roughly 95% the speed of an unencrypted network. WEP and TKIP are 25-35% of the full bandwidth. That alone is reason enough to switch. There are articles on smallnetbuilder about this very issue.

Yes, SSL/TLS use port 443 by default. Is this port allowed? If you can check gmail or online banking then it is supported. The most recent HAK5 video (Dec 17) showed an SSH tunnel. The default SSH tunnel is 22 - this will likely be blocked by the offsite Firewall filter. You can keep the ssh listen port at 22, but map the local 22 port to 80 on the public side (on your SSH server's WAN Firewall). So if your SSH server resides on your home LAN, on your firewall, open public port 80 from the WAN side to port 22 pointing to the LAN IP address of the SSH server. THen setup DynDNS.org on your router's DNS update client or whatever. You can then use Plink or PuTTY Tray to open a SSH session to your personal SSH server and set a loopback port (Hak5 used 9999 in video). Then configure your Web Browser and other clients proxy settings to locahost or 127.0.0.1 and port 9999 and enable SOCKS 5. If you use Firefox, get FoxyProxy extension and be sure to also check "DNS requests are proxied as well". There is another way of doing this without an SSH client session running (this assumes port 443 or HTTPS is not disabled offsite). You can install a personal Proxy Server and Stunnel (SSL server) on a computer on your Home LAN. Squid and ProxyTunnel are two that come to mind http://squid.acmeconsulting.it/ Configure Stunnel to redirect WAN traffic from the listen port 443 to the LAN proxy. Then configure your Offsite webrowser to the WAN address and port of your proxy. No SSH client is needed, but this only works for HTTP and can't be configured for POP, IMAP etc ... without separate servers running. Of course, if you can not change your web browser's Proxy settings then you're SOOL

FoxyProxy is another one that has a more cluttered UI. FoxyProxy allows DNS requests to the proxied as well, which is likely what you want so your DNS request are encrypted as well. I don't remember if SwitchProxy had this, but the Firefox Network settings allows this.

Like others mentioned the Acer Aspire One is a great deal with 1GB RAM and an optional 120GB HDD - optional integrated GSM 3G or WiMAX module. THe HP mini 1000 has a 92% full sized keyboard and I saw it in store and the keyboard is noticeably larger than other netbooks. If you like a big keyboard, consider the HP mini.

I think Jetico Personal v 1.0 is the best free Firewall for Windows XP. http://www.firewallleaktester.com/ http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/ I use it, it is a little crude but effective - a lot of popups in learning mode. Uses only about 6MB each of RAM and VM. Be sure to check "Save Firewall Rules of Exit" in the settings or none of your exceptions will be saved. Zone Alarm, Windows XP SP2 firewall fail miserably. For free, COmodo does well too.