Mister Bushice wrote:
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.