Hello all,

I was wondering if someone could recommend software for monitoring malicious
attempts to connect to my computer.  I'm actually more interested in
identifying and logging attacks that I think would be considered denial of
service attacks, rather than just port scans.  I play some online computer
games, and it is not that ususual to find myself crashed out of a game with
my computer needing a reboot to recover.  The circumstances of when these
incidents occur makes me suspect that someone I was connected to enjoys
causing people grief more so than playing the game.  In any case, I am
interested in somekind of monitoring software that would give me some
evidence of something like this happening, rather than my just suspecting
that this was the case.

I have an ADSL connection that passes through a Linksys router.  The router
has some logging capacity, but it seems pretty limited, simply listing the
IP address and the port number (TCP presumably) for incoming and outgoing
connections made.  I was thinking that I could run the monitoring software
on a second computer hooked up to the router.  I could even place this
computer outside of the router's "firewall", though I don't know if that  is
necessary for what I'm interested in.  Perhaps it will be necessary to have
a computer placed out from behind the router ("DMZ setting"), in order to
log the attack, if it is basically taking down the router, first, and only
indirectly taking my computer with it.  I'm running Win 98 SE, which limits
the tools that are available.

I know this is a complex subject matter and I am probably entering waters
that are over my head, but I would appreciate any and all information on
this topic.

TIA,

John

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