Firewalls on NICs?

[maokly10 () hotmail com]

Greetings:

I always wondered if there was a way to program a firewall (not an IDS!) on a NIC,,,,Alot of benefit could be achieved, 
such as:

1.Ease the load on the processor.

2.An ASM based firewall is hard to crack.

3.Operating systems become a bit further from the attack

I know 3com makes something like i mentioned, but they charge like 150$+...

Could anybody comment on the subject, maybe give me some guidlines.



thanx in advance
MJ

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