Way to deny programs net access?

[Erendiox]

Hey all,

Was just curious if anyone knew how to do this, or if it's even possible. I have a legit copy of word running on my mac and sometimes, when i'm connected to my school network, I get that error saying that someone else is using my serial number and the program quits. Don't know how this is happening, but it's rather annoying. I know I can just disconnect from the network, but I use the net alot, and i'd rather not have to. Is there a way to keep a certain application from accessing the internet?

Thanks

 

[ezkimo]

I believe Little Snitch, and Net Barrier are used for that purpose.

 

[Kernow]

I use Little Snitch for this - you have to pay for it, but it is very good.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Hey all,

Was just curious if anyone knew how to do this, or if it's even possible. I have a legit copy of word running on my mac and sometimes, when i'm connected to my school network, I get that error saying that someone else is using my serial number and the program quits. Don't know how this is happening, but it's rather annoying. I know I can just disconnect from the network, but I use the net alot, and i'd rather not have to. Is there a way to keep a certain application from accessing the internet?

Thanks

Try turning appletalk off and it should stop the problem. I think!

 

[thworple]

I agree - Little Snitch all the way. Great little app - one of my favs!

 

[whooleytoo]

I use Little Snitch for this - you have to pay for it, but it is very good.

Much as I hate to see Apple walking over smaller developers - this really is something I wish Apple would include in the OS. Or at least a way to monitor which processes are accessing the internet and what addresses they're sending to/reading from.

 

[Nuc]

Try this... Open up system preferences then go to your "Sharing prefs." Then under the firewall tab click on advanced and check the "Block UDP Traffic." I believe this should work.

Nuc

 

[whooleytoo]

Try this... Open up system preferences then go to your "Sharing prefs." Then under the firewall tab click on advanced and check the "Block UDP Traffic." I believe this should work.

That should stop UDP traffic alright, though there are other ways of a program 'getting out'.

Incidentally, my firewall was off, and I just turned it on a few minutes ago with Stealth Mode, and firewall logging. Looking over the logs, I've noticed about 20 lines like these, in the space of a few second:

"Sep 6 17:33:57 my computer name ipfw: Stealth Mode connection attempt to TCP my IP address:52365 from remote IP address:80"

Scanning various ports, obviously. Is this normal, or is someone doing a port scan on my address? Out of curiosity, I did a traceroute on the source IP address, and the second last address was ...akamai.com.

 

[FFTT]

Best all around anti-phone home application is Little Snitch.

Available at Version Tracker and MacUpdate

 

[mkrishnan]

I have a legit copy of word running on my mac and sometimes, when i'm connected to my school network, I get that error saying that someone else is using my serial number and the program quits.

Just as an aside, but is the copy a site-license copy? I've never seen this before, so I was just curious. If the others are pirating license / media key, I wonder how it got into the wild in the first place. (Not suggesting you did anything, I'm just curious....)

EDIT: BTW I did some searching and I'm unclear as to whether there are practical ramifications of turning UDP off? Some forums and posts suggest that Samba will not work, and that streaming media and/or AV chat may also be blocked.... Do any of you operate regularly in UDP blocked mode?

 

[Nuc]

Just as an aside, but is the copy a site-license copy? I've never seen this before, so I was just curious. If the others are pirating license / media key, I wonder how it got into the wild in the first place. (Not suggesting you did anything, I'm just curious....)

EDIT: BTW I did some searching and I'm unclear as to whether there are practical ramifications of turning UDP off? Some forums and posts suggest that Samba will not work, and that streaming media and/or AV chat may also be blocked.... Do any of you operate regularly in UDP blocked mode?

I've had it on for the past few months and haven't noticed anything wrong. Of course I'm not doing video chats since I don't have an iSight.

Nuc