Home network Question #2

[Mister Bushice]

ET, I know you've posted on this topic before, but I cannot remeber which board.

I just configured another wireless computer on my network, and during the set up process a window popped up and said something like "The wireless network you are attempting to connect to is unsecured. This may result in others being able to access information shared across this unsecured network"

So - What do I do to secure this unsecured network of mine?

Sorry I'm a network Tard, but I don't do it very often, and this is the first home network I've had.

[PrimeX]

While you're at it E, for some reason on my wireless network my router is not connecting my wireless PC to the internet. The wireless light is off and I cannot firugre out why or how to fix this. I am able to access the internet using the main PC though.

Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[TheArtist]

Lastly E, I just got a juicer. Sears had a cool one on sale. Do you have any juicer recipes?

Sincerely,

Fatsak.

[ElTaco]

I just configured another wireless computer on my network, and during the set up process a window popped up and said something like "The wireless network you are attempting to connect to is unsecured. This may result in others being able to access information shared across this unsecured network"

We discussed this in lenght on the TOT website, and I think there may be some backup TOT site that the winnie who now runs it (brian?) keeps just for our reference and so you might be interested in searching through that. However, the simple and quick description is this:
You should set up your network so that it only works with G and/or A. Don't allow B, because this slows your connection speed down by half, at least on the 2.4 ghz (B/G) network. Thats just a hint and not a way to secure your network.

Next, your placement can be important. The bext place to put your wireless device is generally somewhere in the middle of the house. You should walk the parimeter to make sure you get access everywhere inside the house, but if you walk outside, you get little or no signal. That way your neighborhood teen can't use it to test out his latest worm or hacking exploits. Again just a hint if you are worried, not a way to trully secure your wireless network.

SSID should not be broadcast. By default most routers will broadcast the wireless network's SSID. Don't. Disable this function. Sure it will take your average hacker all of about 5 seconds to sniff it out, but at least they will have to try. Most people don't even disable this, so others use their networks accidentally.

Next you will at the very least want to turn on your WEP encryption, 128bit prefered. This will encrypt the data that travels between your PC/device and your Access point/router. This is good so that no one can snoop on your traffic. There are two things you should know. This does not secure your network, just YOUR traffic and it can severely slow down your connection speed, depending on the quality of your router. If your walls are thick enough and you don't think your family will sniff your traffic, you could in theory keep encryption off and just move on to using a password, the problem is that it only takes 2 seconds to sniff out your password as its being sent over a clear wireless link. Now let me just say this, if you do not use a password with WEP, it will create its own key and with the random keys, 128bit WEP traffic is very hard to impossible to crack. In other words you have secured your traffic, but anyone can connect to your router.

WEP allows for a password to be used so that you have to supply the password before you can connect to the network. This is called Shared key authtentication. Why? Because the geniuses use the password as the encryption key in WEP. This means that while your password is now encrypted, it can be decrypted fairly easily, and at the same time, they also gain access to your WEP key. For home usage, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Usually if you do a decent password, hide the SSID so the person has to know it before they can connect and enable WEP you are relatively secure unless someone intentionally wants to get on there and is willing to snoop for a few hours to a few days.

Your other options is WPA. Lots of the newest Wireless Access points/routers offer this. WPA uses a much stronger form of encryption plus it no longer uses shared passwords.
Your last choice is AES, which meets government level encryption, but only the best (and more expensive wireless devices) support this in general. Cisco APs do, your average linksys does not. These newer forms of encryption offer other strenghts such as the ability to work with servers that control usernames/passwords.

Again, for your average home user, WEP is fine because you don't do anything on there that would warrant DiT spending a few hours trying to break into your network, vs the one that is completely open down the street. If you bring home some fairly secret material, or you directly access your work network from home, you might want to discuss your network options with your work IT people as they may want you to use a certain level of security.

[ElTaco]

While you're at it E, for some reason on my wireless network my router is not connecting my wireless PC to the internet. The wireless light is off and I cannot firugre out why or how to fix this. I am able to access the internet using the main PC though.

Are both machines going through wireless or is your main pc on a wired port while your wireless PC is, as the name would suggest, going through wireless?

If thats the case, do you maybe have your wireless network on your router disabled? Are you maybe using the wrong card, maybe an 802.11a card trying to access an 802.11b/g network? Or do you maybe have your router set up to only allow 802.11g traffic and your network card is only 802.11b compatible?

I would start with your wireless PC. Can it ping itself? Can it ping the router? Can your wireless PC see your other PC in the network neighborhood? Are they both receiving the network info from DHCP and if you check on your PCs, are they receiving good info? On your wireless PC, is the wireless enabled?

Assuming that all checks out and your answer is in the positive, that would mean that the wireless portion of your PC and router are working. In that case I would see if maybe your firewall is configured to block your wireless for some odd reason, or maybe just a user error.

If your initial answers are in the negative then you might try to fix it by looking at your wireless settings on the router/AP and the PC. Is wireless enabled on both. Is DHCP enabled on the router for the wireless side? Is the wireless set up to receive DHCP? If so is it receiving the proper network information? If not, try rebooting the router first and then the PC. If it still doesn't receive the information, you might try to add it in manually. Does the PC see the wireless network and just can't connect? Do you maybe have the wireless PC's configs set up incorrectly (maybe missing the SSID or you put in the wrong password?).

Presumably one of these ideas will hit home and fix your problem. The light would indicate that the wireless portion is disabled. Use your other PC to connect to the router and look at the router setup. Look at your wireless settings under there. If you need more info, give me some information about your router and your setup.

[ElTaco]

Lastly E, I just got a juicer. Sears had a cool one on sale. Do you have any juicer recipes?

Sincerely,

Fatsak.

Dear Fatsak,

I have heard about your affinity for work parking lots and sucking your co-workers dicks. I would encourage you to experiment a little with your juicer, however, let me be the first one to point out that it will not actually retrieve the juice that you so desire for you. Not without causing much pain for your co-workers anyway. You might however use the juicer to get the fruit juice to use as a chaser after your afternoon parking lot visit.

Might I suggest that you use the juicer to create juices with high protein content for breakfast, lunch or dinner? Its not well known but the male juice (aka cum or semen) is very healthy for the diet conscientious person. It is full of proteins, sugars, minerals and vitamins that are great for your body. If you would like to read up on it, I would suggest you read this website.

As far as mixing, well just take a cup of apple, orange or pineapple juice, mix with some parking lot juice, add some ice and viola, you have a great mid morning or mid afternoon high protein drink to keep you going at work.

-ET

[Mister Bushice]

Dude you are Money all the way around. :)

I may have some follow ups , but it'll have to wait. Thanks for taking the time.

[Mister Bushice]

SSID should not be broadcast. By default most routers will broadcast the wireless network's SSID. Don't. Disable this function.

How doth I do this thing you speak of?

[ElTaco]

SSID should not be broadcast. By default most routers will broadcast the wireless network's SSID. Don't. Disable this function.

How doth I do this thing you speak of?

You go into the router's setting and under the wireless tab, it should be the first option. SSID Broadcast: enable/disable.