[gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.4 Questions

Hello,

        I'm planning on making my first attempt to install Gentoo on my system soon.  I have some questions (I hope that I haven't missed the answers to them in the FAQ or docs).  When installing with the 1.4_rc1 CD, how is security addressed while the sources download is occurring?  Is there a basic firewall that is gets installed and configured when you execute the net_setup script?  Also, what is the difference between the "dist_files" and the "gentoo_sources" subdirs on the download site?  Thanks in advance for your help!

                                                        - Andrew Johnson