arthurking ,

I dont blame you for getting confused with all feedback you got.
It seems like everyone including myself went off tangent a bit.

Let me try and keep it simple..
A few thing you need to understand:

1) If your router is blocking all ports (all ports closed on your router)
it does not mean your router is blocking connections to your PC..
It only means your router is blocking connections to itself..

2) Look at following diagram:
And see the difference between PAT and NAT
(I didnt include default gateway of PC,cause its irrelevant to discussion)

[inside]-----------------------------------[outside]

||pc||------------------------||Router||--------------------------|||Internet|||

a.b.c.d -------------------------------------e.f.g.h
(private address)------------------------(public address)

This is what happens with NAT:
When your Pc goes out w/src a.b.c.d the src changes by router to e.f.g.h
and when requests come in from the Internet to dst e.f.g.h,
the router forwards to a.b.c.d.. (static translation always exists on router,
whether you initiate connections from inside or not))

This is what happens with PAT:
When your Pc goes out w/src a.b.c.d the src also changes by router to e.f.g.h,
however it does so dynamically on as need by basis..meaning the router does a translation
only and only when the PC initiates a connection..when pc terminates connection
the router terminates the translation.

This is very important to understand because now if someone tries to initiate a connection from internet to e.f.g.h, requests go directly to your router and only your router...cause you did not initiate a connection from the inside for a translationtable to exist..

In summary:
If your router is doing a PAT, no one can scan your PC directly cause
a) you router does not have a translation table to forward requests to your PC and
b) you are most likely using a private address that is non-routable on internet

If your router is doing a NAT:
a) all requests destined to the public address( scans/hacks/trusted..etc) always
get forwarded to your PC.

Also remember , closing ports on your router has nothing what so ever to do
with closing ports or protecting your PC, it does not mean you are performing
any filtering onyour router, it only means your router is blocking connections to
itself....


Hope this helps, and I promised myself this will be my last response on this subject,,lol

good luck
cheers