The Zonbu unit is definitely *not* a toy that takes a Geek to set up. This is good news: A consumer can be confident in knowing that if she buys a Zonbu and follows the provided instructions, it’ll work right out of the box. I followed the instructions and it booted right up when connected directly to my broadband network. Perfect. But, when I connected it to my *geek* network, it didn’t work. OK. This is not a bad thing. In fact, I’m convinced that Zonbu is more secure than most other platforms. Let me explain.

I confirmed with Zonbu tech support that the unit will not boot without a network connection. In fact, it just hangs up and refuses to do anything if there’s no network cable attached. I tried it on a hub connected to a bridged XP network; nothing. Tried it with a crossover cable; nothing. Zonbu would only boot with a connection to my network switch or when plugged directly into my broadband router.

It looks like this device wants nothing to do with Windows and prefers a direct connection to the Internet. That’s fine by me. No ActiveX vectors, no IE security holes in the middle.

Stay tuned. I’m going to do everything I can to bust this device; however, I’m pretty well convinced that I’m not going to be able to compromise it.

Cheers!
The Geek

Have a question? It can be about anything from cooking to science, whatever you’re interested in: Click here to Ask the Geek! Kenny “The Geek” Harthun has been playing with geeky stuff since 1965. He’s a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer with Connective Computing, Inc. and loves to learn about anything and everything.

[tags]Zonbu, security, geek[/tags]