___________ firewalls evaluate each connection independently.

The correct answer is that stateless firewalls evaluate each connection independently. Stateless firewalls operate by examining each packet in isolation, without keeping track of the state of active connections. This means that they do not maintain context about previous packets in a conversation, instead applying predefined rules to each packet that passes through the firewall.

This method contrasts with stateful firewalls, which keep track of ongoing connections and monitor the state of traffic flows, allowing them to make more informed filtering decisions based on the context of the communications. Stateless firewalls can be faster and less resource-intensive because they do not require the overhead of maintaining session information; however, this lack of context might lead to reduced security effectiveness in complex scenarios where understanding the relationship between packets is crucial for making accurate filtering decisions.

In summary, stateless firewalls evaluate each connection independently and apply rules based only on the attributes of the individual packets, without considering the state of past or ongoing connections.