Firewall configuration issue

["Chris Brown" <CBROWN@seitz.com>]

    We recently installed Debian onto a laptop machine, and ran into 
some weird IP problems.  When we tried to ping out of the laptop, we 
recieved an "Operation not permitted" error.  With help from the 
lists, the problem was tracked to the IP Firewalling setup.  It 
defaulted to not allowing *any* network traffic.  First of all, I 
specifically chose, while setting up modules to be installed for the 
Debian kernel, not to install the IP Firewall-related ones.  Does 
this mean that the installation program changed my kernel setup 
without telling me, to include those necessary modules?
    Second, does it really make sense to have the IP Firewalling 
software default to not allowing any IP traffic?  This is a very non-
intuitive default.  It would be helpful, in my mind, to have a notice 
somewhere saying "Enabling this package will disable all IP 
services until configured otherwise."  Does this make any sense?
    And finally, to satisfy my own curiosity, is this default of 
blocking all traffic a Debian-set default or a 
kernel/developer/maintainer/historical default?

    Thanks a bunch,
        Chris


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