Jim's response we so good, so fact based, so UNinfused with folie a deux mentality that "hardware firewall" guys have with their vendors, I just had to post: Thomas Shinder Blog > Blog Archive > Jim Harrison Beats Down Hardware Firewall Security Mythology: http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/2006/06/25/jim-harrison-beats-down-ha rdware-firewall-security-mythology/