Disable network access until reboot under Linux

Question

Is it possible to disable network access until a reboot under Linux? I am interested in creating a Freedom equivalent for Linux (currently only available on Windows/Mac)

Answer 1

Just open up a console and do an ifconfig to list your currently working network interfaces (if if says you can't see ifconfig, do /sbin/ifconfig instead). You should get a list much like...

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:16:3E:67:93:05
          inet addr:192.168.2.127  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::216:3eff:fe67:9305/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3292579 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1916788 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1670865588 (1.5 GiB)  TX bytes:4208291745 (3.9 GiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:3170896 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3170896 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:201272471 (191.9 MiB)  TX bytes:201272471 (191.9 MiB)

In this case, if I wanted to disable traffic from the interface eth0, but wanted it to be active when I reboot, then type the command sudo ifconfig eth0 down, which will turn the interface off until reboot. If you want to bring it back up again, type sudo ifconfig eth0 up.