Garmin HN294DP/DI - Manual (Page 9)

Introduction
EN/LZT 108 6377 R4 - September 2003 3
find the HN294d and assign your computer an IP address. Now, you are
ready to surf and use the Internet anywhere in your home.
Since a wireless network is more vulnerable to attacks than a traditional
wired network it is recommended to make some configuration that will
make it impossible for another user than you to access the wireless
network. The HN294d has several configuration possibilities to help you
improve the security in your wireless LAN.
In a wireless configuration the HN294d is designed to reach 50-100 meters
indoors (up to 300 meters outdoors), but when choosing a location for your
router keep in mind that this length is affected by a number of rules, such
as:
The more walls the signal has to pass, the shorter will the signal
reach.
The thicker the wall is, the shorter will the signal reach.
Keep the HN294d away from equipment that might disturb the
signal (such as Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens and 2.4 GHz
cordless phones).
1.2.3 Security
You can connect more than 250 PCs to the HN294d, all sharing the same
public IP address. This is made possible by NAT (Network Address
Translation) technology. NAT also hides your PCs from the Internet, which
serves as security protection, making it impossible to directly target your
PCs from the outside. All traffic is addressed to the HN294d, which, with its
powerful firewall, inspects all incoming and outgoing traffic and removes
malicious or dangerous packets. The firewall is a full stateful packet
inspection firewall, which means that it will not only inspect packets (like
simple firewalls) but also will remember and investigate traffic flows and
patterns to detect and prevent advanced attacks. To keep it simple, all that
you need to do is select the desired level of security.
Even though your PCs are invisible and protected from the Internet you can
still access the Internet as before, and all your Internet programs (games,
applications, peer-to-peer programs, communications applications etc) will
still work. This is handled by built-in mechanisms that recognize your
programs and allow them to access the Internet directly. Everything is
handled automatically and requires no user configuration.
The HN294 also supports pass-through of common VPN (Virtual Private
Network) implementations making it possible for the user to create secure
connections. A VPN is used to create secure connections where
confidential information needs to be sent. The VPN can be compared to a