# Forum Home Renovation Television, Computers & Phones  Wireless Router

## rrobor

Ok may not quite be the correct grouping but Im feeling bold.  I have my Modem on a router, having 3 computers for Mois and her indoors.  Consists of workshop, old and my newly built super dupa. Anyways Large child bought a laptop, he is designing a website  and does a lot of Uni stuff cos he spels beta than me. Anyways we all hook up and off we go. Worked fine for a time then I got picked up by 3 other computers who, one night, downloaded 1.2 gig.  Now its not so much them stealing my download space, but if they downloaded kiddy porn, that would be logged to my account and I would be in all sorts of strife.  So word of advice, if you use a wireless router, put a password on it.

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## Ashwood

Definitely!!! Never do without the encrypted password function in your router. 
I'm more paranoid than that, and decided not to use the wireless function. I've now wired up my house with cat 5 cable & keystone faceplates, various points in the house all branching out from the router point.

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## murray44

It's not the kids you need to worry about if you have no password, it's the rest of the neighbouhood! 
Woohoo free internet.

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## lbg

On my router I can choose to only allow wireless devices I setup. So I only enable my laptop. Others can't even see the connection in their list.

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## rrobor

Ah sorry not so If you have an apple you can see all devices sending out a signal, They dont need your permission to log on to the internet, They cant get through your computer firewall etc to get into your computer but there is no wall between the router and the internet except what the router has, and thats a password.

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## watson

I worried about this point when I first got the missus a laptop.
She wanted to be able to sit in her studio.......sit in the fernery........sit in the house.......anywhere at all and use the net.
So I bought her ('cos we're a Mac Family) the newest Macbook and an Airport router.
Anyone that comes to stay has internet wireless access ,without password, all through our system which is vSat both ways.  I didn't access the password stuff, as any car stopping outside our place (and you need a car to get there) is immediately noticeable.
But, I could see the problem arising if you live in the city or the burbs.
That's the problem with the city.........so many rsoles...and not enough bullets. 
(I'll probably have to go and hide in the Time-out room now)

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## Mick0s

Just thought I'd add my two cents and contribute to this forum for once. 
rrobor is indeed right.  If you have a wireless network/router *always* enable the security settings for it.   
If you don't know how to do this, the manual is generally a good place to start.  Now, wireless security comes in many different forms, WEP, WPA, WPA2 plus a few more.  With the current "standard" being WPA2 today.  This method encryts all the traffic flying around on your wireless network so that people can't come along and "sniff" these and read your person information. 
however it's not perfect.  It can be cracked, though it takes a bit of time to do, so there's generally a few other steps you can take in setting up your wireless network if you're security conscious.   
As lbg eluded to, you can indeed hide your network from being seen in other peoples "available networks" list.  All routers will have a SSID (Service Set Identifier) name.  This is generally what you chose to be the name of your network.  Be it "HOME", "Bob's Network", or anything else you care to chose.  This is also the name that shows up on poeples lists.
You can choose ot set your router to not broadcast this name, stopping it from showing up in peoples lists.  But, again, this is far from perfect, as it can still easily be found by your enterprising teenage neighbour.  Simply by "sniffing" the wireless data lfying around, and examinig this with some applications can reveal the SSID of the network it's intended for.  Once they have this name, if no other form of security exists (other than obscurity) they're in. 
A final option (though not the last option by any means) is know as MAC Address filtering.  Each computer with any type of network access (be it wired or wireless) will have it's own MAC (Media Access Control) address.  This will be in the form of 6 consecutive double digit characters separated by dashes or colons (ie. 01-23-45-67-89-ab) and on laptops can generally be found printed on a label on the underside.  Personal Computers will be a little more work to find, but not any real trouble.  Routers can be set up to only accept connections from specific MAC addresses, so other, unlisted addresses will not be granted access.
Again, this is not flawless.  As will SSID broadcast, it's not really that difficult to find out a working address, and once you've got that, you can generate your own traffic, with this ID, thus access the "secured" network. 
So, whilst none of these options are perfect on their own, a combination of 2 or three of them should generally be enough to at least deter someone from taking the time to get into your network. 
For the most part, WPA2 encryption should suffice, as, in adding anything more, all those other networks around with only encryption suddenly seem like much easier targets to your neighbour's enterprising child.  :Smilie:   But by all means, use all the security you feel you need.  I won't judge you. 
I should state though, that personally, I only have WPA2 Encryption, and haven't bothered, for simple ease of use, setting up anything more.  Being in the IT industry, only a few weeks go by before I have to connect something else up to the network, and set everything up again.  Though that might be a different story if I noticed someone was going to the effort to get access to my network.

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## rrobor

Now yes I did put WPA2 on but you forgot the other option.  I just went round to his house and told him if I caught him or his mates doing it again Id come round and wring their bloody necks. I did run the freeby program Air snare to see who was trying to log on, since then alls well.

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## Gooner

> Besides the security risks, wireless is far too slow, it can, at peak times be worst than the old dial up days.................but, I guess that would be quick enough for Rob............

  Wireless too slow? Rest assured that most wireless connections (to wireless routers) will be faster than the internet speed itself. If the signal is good (and therefore don't have issues with packet loss etc) then you cannot say wireless is too slow. 
Password encryption is an obvious must. Locking the router to only accept certain network adaptor MAC addresses is also a very good extra way of securing your network, as not many people treat their houses like a hotspot for everyone who happens to come in packing a laptop.

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## lbg

agree with Gooner - if you're receiving a decent link to your router (even at half capacity) the link will still be faster for browsing the internet than any internet connection speed you'll get. Transferring files, from PC to PC is a different story. 
MAC address restriction is the 100% the most secure way of safeguarding your connection. The only way it can be "hacked" or modified is if someone physically plugs into the router or steals your laptop and attempts to break in wirelessly from out the front of your house.

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## Gooner

> MAC address restriction is the 100% the most secure way of safeguarding your connection. The only way it can be "hacked" or modified is if someone physically plugs into the router or steals your laptop and attempts to break in wirelessly from out the front of your house.

  
... or hacks into your router and changes the settings.

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## Mick0s

> ... or hacks into your router and changes the settings.

  ... or modifies their own MAC address to mirror yours MAC spoofing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 
Actually, I little research tells me that MAC Address filtering is about as effective as hising your network's SSID.  ie: not effective at all.
The MAC address' of both the source and target interfaces are freely available in the unencrypted part of the signals, so once these have been read, it's all over red rover. 
At least using WPA/WPA2 Encrption will mean that whoever's trying to use your network has to spend a little time cracking the encryption first.  
If you want to be totally secure, isolate your network.  Only run hardwired access points, which will have the added advantage of being a LOT faster than your wireless network anyway.

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## rrobor

Hey Heady old pal, old chum, you got sent to the back of the room in disgrace, Your time aint out yet.

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## Ashwood

Haha, looks like someone's with me on hardwiring (MickOs) 
But in all probability, it should be enough to use password encryption. Chances are, any intrusion will be teenagers in your immediate neighbours in the 4 directions, and unless you have a keen & capable hacker there, they will only try getting onto your wireless system if you are ''silly" enough to have no password at all.  
Just monitor your usage periodically, if no large unexpected chunk gets used, you're probably ok.

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## chromis

> Definitely!!! Never do without the encrypted password function in your router. 
> I'm more paranoid than that, and decided not to use the wireless function. I've now wired up my house with cat 5 cable & keystone faceplates, various points in the house all branching out from the router point.

  
Totally agree with this. I'm a Systems Administrator and I not only have I disabled the wireless service on my router at home I unscrewed and removed the antenna as well.I also cabled the house over a wireless solution.

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## Gooner

I guess the amount of paranoia depends on where you live. If I lived in a city apartment block I probably would be a little extra cautious with wireless. But out in the far burbs, either my elderly neighbours would have to turn out to be cyber-hacks or someone would have to sit in a car at the front of my house. Good luck to them.

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## Guv

Not just paranoia - performance benefits too. 
From my inner city apartment lounge room, I can 'see' 13x wireless access points (3 of which are not secured  :Shock:  ). The problem this many viable connections has is that each 'overlap' at least one other (usually more), causing a degraded signal.  
If on the other hand there were only 3x visible connections in the area, then you'd set them to channels 1, 6 & 11 and get no overap - and hence optimum performance.  
Anyhow, that isn't my case so I'm in the process of hardwiring my LAN - 20 odd CAT6 ports spread throughout the apartment, all connected to a 24 port rack mounted gigabit switch. Complete overkill but while the gyprock was off, it was an easy decision and a quick-win job. :2thumbsup:

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## Flasher

LAN party at Guv's :Biggrin:

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## Groggy

Nice way to go Guv. I used CAT6 too during a recent re-wiring job. 
As for the wireless, I limit the MAC addresses to IP, and further limit what the IP can do. Repeated attempts to login are automatically permanently locked out. I get about three a week on wireless. A get a lot more from China and Korea on the internet.

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## Pugs

wow some truely paranoid people in this thread...  
like has been posted toughest encyrption... disable admin log in via wireless, having a usb stick with your wireless settings on it for quick config of new devices. 
I'm a data cabler and geek I have a wired and wireless running no dramas at all. 
ps i hope all you guys how are getting cables run either have your data cabling ticket or getting done by someone who does....

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## rrobor

Well perhaps Im getting a bit older, but Ive seen too many systems come and go. At the mooment its LAN tomorrow, who knows Blue ray optical?. I remember the old paper floppy, then my mate installed 2 new style floppies. He was always extravagant. In Singapore he bought a 650MB hard drive for $500, Thought he could never fill that much space. So filling Lan cable all over the house, na, 10 years from now someone will look, laugh, and shake their head.

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## chromis

> Well perhaps Im getting a bit older, but Ive seen too many systems come and go. At the mooment its LAN tomorrow, who knows Blue ray optical?. I remember the old paper floppy, then my mate installed 2 new style floppies. He was always extravagant. In Singapore he bought a 650MB hard drive for $500, Thought he could never fill that much space. So filling Lan cable all over the house, na, 10 years from now someone will look, laugh, and shake their head.

  
I've been in the industry for 13 years and have seen dramatic changes in that short time but you can't compare ethernet over CAT to a floppy drive. If you cable the house with CAT6 it will last ten years.

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## autogenous

Search *WEP Key*

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## rrobor

Im totally confused , Is there a temperature tax on a wireless router or for that matter data cable. Or was it like we all occasionaly do, get confused a bit after a nice cab sav.

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## chromis

Search Hack WEP Key

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## chromis

> Im totally confused , Is there a temperature tax on a wireless router or for that matter data cable. Or was it like we all occasionaly do, get confused a bit after a nice cab sav.

  
I think your plan is to firstly confuse yourself, then everyone else  :Biggrin:   
Works well.

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## rrobor

Well I just looked at hacking the WEP key as you suggest and Im still confused. 
I have in my house a wee office with a nice soft wing backed easy chair for my computer. I think I would notice some sort of nerd sitting in my chair trying to hack passwords. Also the router has a button on the back marked factory reset, so all that seems a bit of a bother.   Plus, from time to time I monitor usage, and who is on. So tell me why would I be interested in hacking my own computer. Sure I know there must be methods of attack in other ways but paranoia is not one of my issues.

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## Guv

> Search Hack WEP Key

  I was thinking exactly the same...  
From wikipedia: Wired Equivalent Privacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   

> Beginning in 2001, several serious weaknesses were identified by cryptanalysts with the result that today a WEP connection can be cracked with readily available software within minutes.

  WPA (& WPA2) are far superior in terms of security - and generally faster too.

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## dib

Problem with WPA is that there older devices which don't support it.  I have wireless media player and it only support WEP so thats what I use.  I might just have to get new one though ...

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## Guv

> ... I might just have to get new one though ...

  Any excuse!  :Evillaugh:

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