Welcome To Australia's No.1 Media Center Community!
You Are Currently Viewing As A Guest - you'll need to register in order to participate in our community and make this annoying message disappear!
By registering you'll be able to post & reply to questions, set up your own image gallery & blog, communicate privately with other members, create & respond to polls, access downloads and other "members only" features.
Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not join our community today - you'll be glad you did!
For any problems with the registration process or your account, please contact support.
Doug Berrett, the author of that great Media Center utility known as WebGuide, recently joined the Media Center team over at Microsoft. At CEDIA Expo in September, Microsoft announced that WebGuide for Windows Media Center is now available as a free download from http://www.asciiexpress.com
What is WebGuide?
WebGuide allows you to remotely view live and recorded TV programs and to remotely schedule and manage your recorded television programs, music, pictures and videos on your Media Center or Windows Vista PC. Install WebGuide on your Media Center PC and access it from any machine that has a web browser, including your cell phone or mobile device.
Convenient
Live streaming TV can be viewed on any web browser
Recordings can be scheduled from any web browser
"Place-shifting" for your personal media library, including TV, music, pictures, videos and DVD's
PocketPC and Smartphone enabled
Windows Vista ready
Easy
Installation takes only minutes
User-friendly MCE interface
Languages include Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish
Fast
Live scheduling without delays
Search by show, date or time
Quick access to recent and upcoming recordings
I am under the impression that to use web guide to its full potential you have to open up ports so the program can 'listen' for incoming requests.
In my mind, open ports = security risk.
This 'remote recording setup' is aready available through PIMP on ICETV. The major difference is that you make your requests on your pda and these are stored on ICETV's server, you then set up your PIMP client to log into the server and pick up the requests, so no d*cking about with your port settings.
Surely this is much safer from a security point of view ??
If Im wrong about this please feel free to correct me (yeah ok, you too astro )
I am under the impression that to use web guide to its full potential you have to open up ports so the program can 'listen' for incoming requests.
In my mind, open ports = security risk.
This 'remote recording setup' is aready available through PIMP on ICETV. The major difference is that you make your requests on your pda and these are stored on ICETV's server, you then set up your PIMP client to log into the server and pick up the requests, so no d*cking about with your port settings.
Surely this is much safer from a security point of view ??
If Im wrong about this please feel free to correct me (yeah ok, you too astro )
Cheers
OZ(II)
lol... If you open ALL your ports then you've got a security risk. Opening the ports required for Webguide is not a problem. Webguide also acts as a streaming media server so that you can watch your recorded TV remotely if you have good bandwidth.
Opening the ports required for Webguide is not a problem.
Only as long as the first security issue in Webguide will be discovered, I think that will take only few weeks. Taking into the acount "quality" of Vista and MCE programming it seems to me almost insane to put anything with relation to home MS software exposed through my firewall. So this can be used only for in-house schedulling which may be convenient, but not so cool as a remote scheduling.
Only as long as the first security issue in Webguide will be discovered, I think that will take only few weeks. Taking into the acount "quality" of Vista and MCE programming it seems to me almost insane to put anything with relation to home MS software exposed through my firewall. So this can be used only for in-house schedulling which may be convenient, but not so cool as a remote scheduling.
I suppose if you're hiding state secrets, save all your bank access data on your MCE or have a personal line to the Prime Minister it might be worth somebody trying to find a weakness in your media center but if you're just the average joe like me and have all the other ports locked up then frankly you'd have to be pretty paranoid to be worried about such things. I wouldn't give it another thought personally.
Were talking about about opening 1 port which you can specify in the Webguide setup. What's the worst that's gonna happen on your MCE box? Some hacker is gonna learn your viewing habits? Leech or delete your porn collection?
I think there is some unwarranted fears with port forwarding. Not everyone is out to get you, however I concur that some security flaw may exist and be exploited with Webguide. At this stage, i have heard of no such thing.
I am continuously creating accounts and activating/deactivating in webguide so family and friends can view and download the high Quality Photos we take at events. Works a treat!
I suppose if you're hiding state secrets, save all your bank access data on your MCE or have a personal line to the Prime Minister it might be worth somebody trying to find a weakness in your media center but if you're just the average joe like me and have all the other ports locked up then frankly you'd have to be pretty paranoid to be worried about such things. I wouldn't give it another thought personally.
I wouldn't believe that anyone can be so naive even these days. Your computer sitting on broadband line is a very easily tradable resource. Most of these SPAMs that you're getting each day as anyone else, were send from exactly the same computer as is your HTPC whose owners are simply not "worried about such things" and "wouldn't give it another thought personally".
There are groups and individuals checking whole networks for computers with any known flows that can be remotely exploited to gain a control over them and them used directly or reselled to SPAMers, hackers or others who need for any reason a computer untracable to its real user while being connected to the Internet.
Not from my HTPC. I don't use it for emails, I rarely use it to browse the net using IE. I run Defender and Avast.
I think you will find that those machines that get hacked are not kept clean by the end user.
" up to date Virus Dats, Regular Spybot Scans, defender"etc.
I think i can also say that the serious HTPC user doesn't use the machine for all that other "Crap" that the average joe does.
A lot of those issues are not related to firewall at all. The firewall will only block known trojans and other viruses that use "Methods" of transmission other than emails and use TCP Ports.
IF your talking Spam, thats an email issue and has nothing to do with firewalls! Firewalls do not block spam or anything coming in our out through your email client.
You "Must" have a firewall, there's no question. All ports are blocked by default,(except the common services). You only open ports you Know are safe. Firewalls do not protect your machine from Viruses and Spam. IT protects you from the governing function that the virus/Trojan was written for. So, if your infected, then yes, the firewall is important.
I'm sure my facts are not 100%. Feel free to elaborate and correct.
I'm sure my facts are not 100%. Feel free to elaborate and correct.
That's right. In fact you're almost 100% incorrect. You misunderstood me. When I was talking about spamming, I was not talking about spamming you as a owner of that unfortunate computer, but spamming others with it.
Typical remote assault works this way:
1) finding an open port
2) finding an application servicing it
3) finding any known remote exploit for that application
4) using a code to use this exploit
5) gain an access to the computer with the same permission as the application had (usually service running as System)
6) do whatever you need, such as disabling or cripling any security software installed, installing some rootkit (hardly detectable by any software), installing email server
7) spamming everyone
I wouldn't believe that anyone can be so naive even these days. Your computer sitting on broadband line is a very easily tradable resource. Most of these SPAMs that you're getting each day as anyone else, were send from exactly the same computer as is your HTPC whose owners are simply not "worried about such things" and "wouldn't give it another thought personally".
There are groups and individuals checking whole networks for computers with any known flows that can be remotely exploited to gain a control over them and them used directly or reselled to SPAMers, hackers or others who need for any reason a computer untracable to its real user while being connected to the Internet.
Wow. That's paranoia gone mad. There's no naivete as far as I'm concerned but I'm not so sure in reverse. There are way too many unprotected machines out there on the web for some hacker to waste his time trying to find a weakness in a well protected webguide machine to exploit for the sake of spreading spam mails. Nobody is suggesting it's impossible, just highly unlikely and barely worth giving a second thought to.
Naaah Philzgr8, its not paranoid at all, if your connected to the net and online all the time, its only a matter of time before some one has a crack at you.
I only wish I still had the security log from my old ftp server to show you how often someone tried to access my server to bounce crap around the net.
I was on the plane brisvegas to melb on monday night and was talking to a bloke who works for an IT security company who employs 'white hat' hackers. He sets up a security system and then employs someone to try and hack it.
He was telling me that if someone is determined to hack you they will. its the same with your house. If someone wants to get in, one way or another they will, you best you can to is not leave your door (or ports) unlocked.
As for not having a reason, they dont need to have a reason, they break in, phark around with your computer and leave a mess just because they can.
For this reason, I never leave my media center (or any other computer) connected to the net full time, I only connect to download the guide.
Naaah Philzgr8, its not paranoid at all, if your connected to the net and online all the time, its only a matter of time before some one has a crack at you.
I only wish I still had the security log from my old ftp server to show you how often someone tried to access my server to bounce crap around the net.
I was on the plane brisvegas to melb on monday night and was talking to a bloke who works for an IT security company who employs 'white hat' hackers. He sets up a security system and then employs someone to try and hack it.
He was telling me that if someone is determined to hack you they will. its the same with your house. If someone wants to get in, one way or another they will, you best you can to is not leave your door (or ports) unlocked.
As for not having a reason, they dont need to have a reason, they break in, phark around with your computer and leave a mess just because they can.
For this reason, I never leave my media center (or any other computer) connected to the net full time, I only connect to download the guide.
OZ(II)
Well we will have to agree to disagree on that one. I have had PC's connected for months on end without even a single attempted hack. Of course if I was running an FTP server I would expect plenty of attempts daily but then as said if all I'm doing is opening a single port for webguide I'll happily sleep like a baby!
Doug Berrett, the author of that great Media Center utility known as WebGuide, recently joined the Media Center team over at Microsoft. At CEDIA Expo in September, Microsoft announced that WebGuide for Windows Media Center is now available as a free download from 
)
In fact you're almost 100% incorrect. You misunderstood me. When I was talking about spamming, I was not talking about spamming you as a owner of that unfortunate computer, but spamming others with it.
