said by PapaMidnight:A firewall is only as secure as the person who sets the options and/or secures it.
right. my point was that pfsense/m0n0wall is not your "run of the mill" router solution and as such, users configuring it should be aware of security.
my argument was that in my experience with consumer-grade (linksys, dlink, netgear, etc) routers, there was no "remote shell" ability - only that of "web gui remote administration". i can understand people using _these_ devices not understanding what telnet/ssh is and leaving it on with a default password. i was simply posing the question if this was an option on consumer routers as i had never seen it. if it _was_ an option, then i can understand the desire to build something to exploit that market segment. if that was not a common option built in to user gear, then the only people exploited are those who *do know* what remote shells are, but are too lazy to configure them in a secure manner.
q.