Re: Wireless security? ? ?

Basically, you have to turn on encryption. There are two major classes of encryption offered, WEP (older and less secure) and WPA (newer and far more secure). While WEP can be broken by a knowledgeable hacker, breaking is still difficult and is far beyond the capabilities of even most fairly knowledgeable computer USERS (users, not hackers or programmers). WEP is "good enough" for most private residential users, but if your hardware supports both WEP and WPA (and most anything sold in the past 2 years does), then use WPA. Otherwise, WEP is still a couple of orders of magnitude better than nothing.

Now for the bad news: Setting up encryption can be quite difficult, especially if you have a mixed vendor environment (e.g. your router and your wireless network card were not all made by the same company). In my experience, most typical end users fail and need professional assistance to convert their network into an encrypted network. There is a fair amount of configuration required for every computer using the encrypted network, and most of it is way beyond the understanding of most end users. Further, the exact procedure is slightly different for each brand of product (it's slightly different for Linksys vs. D-Link, for example), so it's impossible to give exact, step-by-step instructions.


Ray wrote:
Recently I read in the New York Times that large numbers of people are secretly piggy-backing on their neighbors' wireless networks.

I use a wireless system -- a desktop with two laptops. I am certain that the person in the next apartment could connect, without my knowing it.

I understand there's a way to prevent this, but I've never seen a one-two-three step instruction on how to do this.

Can anyone tell me? Emphasize once more, one-two-three steps.


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Relevant Pages

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