hi guys i have just bought my son a wireless laptop and i also bought a wireless router which i connected to my computor they are both working fine.but im very concerned as to wether my neighbours can also pick up the signal from my router and if so what can i do about it. im very concerned as to wether im safe on my computor. anyone with any info please
Set WPA/TKIP and the necessary password key. Look here for more info. http://practicallynetworked.com/security/041207wpa_vs_wep.htm
thanks for the info but i am new to computors but learning everyday.could you please tell me what wpa/tkip is and how to access it
It's fairly easy to setup. Consult the routers doc and find out how to access the web page configuration. It's usually something like http://192.168.1.1/ through the web browser. Once you access it navigate to the wireless security setup area, and activate WPA personal / TKIP. Choose your security phrase (shared key) and SSID. In the client software on the laptop, setup a profile for the SSID you chose, select WPA/TKIP as the authentication type, and enter the phrase you used earlier for the shared key.. That's all there is to it. Which brand and model of router did you buy ?
Check out chapter two in the doc, it tells you how to set it up. ftp://downloads.netgear.com/files/WGT624v4_RM_22May07.pdf
Good suggestion however WPA/TKIP has been compromised not so long back, hence (as per my signature) all my stuff is on WPA2/AES now). WPA/AES is still secure as far as i remember, and WPA/TKIP is still more secure than the atrocity that is WEP but as WPA2 has been around for quite a while i'd be done with it and go WPA2. Just checked and Netgear WGT624 does support WPA2-PSK (not sure about WPA2/AES, there's too many combinations of these things!), and the wireless laptop most likely supports WPA2 also so that's what i would do if it was me.
Fair comment creaky. My own oldie-but-goodie Linksys WRT54GL supports it, as does my desktop client, although I never activated it. I looked in my "site survey", of the 9 SSID's I see, 5 are using WEP, 3 are using WPA2, and I'm the sole user of WPA. Perhaps I should reconsider! Something that's easily overlooked by newbies is to set a good password to the router configuration. Another thing I do is to limit the DHCP range to just 2, and my own 2 PC's are using those.
Indeed, passwords are often overlooked or made too simple. I still keep mine quite simple as my line of work entails remembering too many passwords as it is, but i offset that risk by using WPA2/AES. There's even this ~ https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm where you can create ultra secure random passwords but they're no good to me as it would mean writing them down or keeping them on the PC in a text file as they're ridiculously complex As per my signature two routers are still on WPA and i'll be going round to up them to WPA2 in the week, have been meaning to do that for ages. I forgot to mention it in my previous reply but for anyone (like me) that doesn't use Microsoft's Automatic Updates, XP itself can't use WPA2 until you apply the WPA2 fix. Limiting the DHCP scope is always a good idea, i have mine set to only the amount of devices on my network, 20 at the last count (there's various games consoles, and any PC's that have wireless and wired connections have a specific DHCP lease for each connection). And as i'm a tidy freak i use Static DHCP leases thus every devices always gets the same IP forever more, makes it easy to remember which are which. There's MAC filtering too, which is actually a waste of time as anyone in the know can spoof MAC addresses anyway, but i still use the filter as it's available.
