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Outpost and how it functions

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You should have an understanding now of the Internet and the technologies behind it, but how does Outpost work in relation to it?

Outpost's Function

Outpost job is to sit between your PC and the rest of the Internet. Outpost is designed to make sure that the files on your computer are not accessible to the Internet and to make sure that only authorised programmes access the Internet. Additionally Outposts design allows its capabilities to be extended in to any other area a user cares to take it, like content filtering for example. All that is needed is a relevant plugin.

Some people may think of Outpost as not being a firewall because of these extra features, they are of the belief that an application should do just one thing and one thing alone, you've probably seen them on forums spouting their hatred of Outpost and how it's not a firewall. If they really wanted things to follow a strict set of rules and never change they wouldn't have any forums to chat in since HTTP as it was originally designed didn't allow that kind of functionality and computers would still be things the size of the a small room operated with punched cards if the definition of a computer wasn't allowed to evolve.

As it is Outpost meets all the traditional definitions of a firewall, if they don't like the content filtering then they can turn off the plugins and have a 'pure' personal firewall. The plugins are so independent that the Attack Detection plugin has no knowledge of what is in the trusted zone and plugins can even have their registry references deleted without affecting Outpost - this is one of the beauties of Outposts design, if you don't like one aspect of it, just don't run that aspect.

I think Outpost is being developed in the right direction, more and more things are becoming simpler to use and jobs that used to be performed by separate applications are now being performed by an hybrid of several programs (usability studies show this is what users want too). For example, FTP clients are now capable of acting download managers, browsers are starting to perform the job of e-mail clients and FTP clients, televisions being able to use the Internet, Games consoles being able to send e-mails and mirowaves and fridges being can order food for you as you run out. Outpost is doing the same kind of thing, just with Internet security and performance.

How does Outpost actualy work?

Take browsing the Internet for example, first you put in an address into your browser and hit return. Your browser then checks your ISPs DNS server for the IP address associated with that web address. Once the IP is discovered your browser then contacts that address and request the page, the server at the other end then sends back the page to you.

Now, if you have Outpost installed you will have control over what accesses the Internet, when and why. The above would still happen but additional things occur because of Outpost, first Outpost checks to see if it knows the application, if it does Outpost checks to see if it has changed since it last tried to access the net. If the check shows it hasn't changed Outpost then checks that applications rules to see if the attempt communication should be permitted, if it is the application is allowed to communicate.

This is a simplistic summary of how a firewall works, but it's about all you need to know as far as the technical aspects of firewalls go. If you want to know in more detail about how a firewall and/or the Internet works there are many books and web sites. Unless your particularly interested, in all the minutiae of firewalls and networking they will probably bore you to death, you may prefer to read a book about the some other aspect of the Internet that will also explain firewalls and networking but in an easier to understand way.

E-commerce or marketing are good choices, books on these subjects usually cover firewalls and networking without being real geeky and explain things clearly as their intended audience isn't that technical. A good one to start with is E-commerce: business, technology, society by Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol Guercio Traver. It was published by Addison Wesley in 2002 so it's pretty up-to-date, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is 0-201-74815-0.

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Outpost and the Outpost logo are ©Agnitum Software

This is an unofficial guide, the information expressed here may differ from Agnitum's. There is a support forum (no longer run by Agnitum, but by users) if you need more help this is a good place to start. Where information here conflicts with what Agnitum have told you always go with the information given to you by Agnitum.

Guide/site and images ©Stephen Cox