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Once per year, it is definitely worth to forget all about mainboards, graphics cards, CPUs and other peripherals or internals and go back to the one feature that, like no other, makes today's computers what they are: connectivity. As we stressed on the top page, there is no such thing as a free lunch and connectivity comes at the cost of vulnerability and security risks that we are only beginning to comprehend.

Where, until recently, the major push of the industry has been to enable faster connection speed, the focus has shifted towards security for all reasons outlined earlier. There is no such thing as paranoia when it comes to protection, cybercrime is no longer bound by any social behavior or limitations, for the simple reason that the human adversary with all intraracial inhibitions is being replaced by a digital code, which to hurt does not cause any grief or second thoughts. Cybercrime also gives new meaning to the term "Random Violence", anybody can be the victim of any punk who does not even benefit from his or her acts, if they even know about the ramifications.

In light of these issues, there cannot be enough security features in any interface to the outside world. Demilitarized Zones or DMZs can only prevail in a bona fide non-agression environment but such agreements can only exist between known entities and fall short as soon as there is access for any random players.

Unfortunately, this is exactly where the XC-DPG402 with the current firmware version falls short of the expectations. It is not that the unit does not provide protection, however, any port that is visible, can be probed and probed and probed again. Since most firewalls are, by now, invisible to the outside world, any visible computer sticks out like a sore thumb and attracts hackers and their wannabees like some blood would attract sharks. Please refer to the Update on the next page.

Otherwise, the Xincom XC-DPG402 offers almost all benefits of its closest competitor, that is, the Nexland ISB Pro800turbo for a little over half the price. Granted that there are only 4 LAN ports but routers can be expanded with relatively inexpensive hubs / switches. All in all, the XC-DPG402 is an intriguing solution at a bargain price, we'll hopefully be able to follow up with an update as soon as the next version of firmware to address our concerns becomes available.

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