Tackling the cupboard monsters

It sits under the stairs, blinking away to itself day and night. But that¿s not all it is doing. Unless you diligently switch the thing off ¿ and who¿s going to do that when broadband is so widely used for overnight downloads and as a substitute for a regular phone line ¿ your Internet gateway is drawing a steady 10W or more, day and night. For much of that time, it¿s just bouncing keep-alive packets back and forth, and fending off the odd port probe from a hacker¿s PC. You, and the planet, are paying the price of this highenergy idleness.