Is your wireless network protected?

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I have had a wireless network here (Apple's AirPort) for years, but it was just yesterday that I discovered it was unprotected, so that other people in the neighborhood could (and probably did) use it. There are several other open networks in this area that I could use if I wanted to. If you have a wireless network, you might want to make sure that it can only be used by your own computers...

Yeah using WPA-PSK TKIP method, i'd never advise anyone to use unprotected networks or WEP. Theres people out there with laptops, psp's, ds-lites etc scanning for them all the time when there out and about town.

my wireless network has been protected from the start, WEP thought for DS Lite compatibility reasons, I used to have one

also I live near a housing estate where no one would know how to break WEP anyway so that does help, and if it is broken into I'll change it to WPA until I need the lower security anyway


a side note, shouldn't this be in the computers section?

I put it here so that people who aren't really into computers, and wouldn't monitor the computer section, would still see it. Most computer-savy people are probably already protected.

And what's so bad about other people using your wireless network? They can't spy on you, surely?

Well, they can tie up your network. Plus, you are probably legally responsible for any content they upload/download

My wireless network isn't protected. I know I should have it encrypted but its range, being an 802.11b router, has a range of about 20 feet. So if anyone wants to leech off of my connection or steal my personal info, they literally have to sit in my driveway right in front of the house. Where I can see the color of their eyes.

If I had a WLAN, I wouldn't protect it since my ancient laptop's Wifi card can't handle encryption. I'd filter on MAC-address basis (or simply not let the Wifi be routed into the 'net so I'd have to ssh into a real computer to get online)

I've turned on WEP (not as good as WPA but still ok), added Mac Address Filtering and hidden the SSID. It's also got a horrible password that is completely unguessable and isn't written down either.

In addition, the personal firewalls on my PC and Laptop only trust eachother.

Actually, yes, they can sniff all of the wireless traffic. Anything sent in plaintext can be discovered, such as passwords to non-ssl sites (like this one), web site addresses, emails, etc. Additionally, anyone can get access to your private LAN - your home network. So any shared drives, printers, etc you have will able to be used just like they were on your home network. If any of your computers have security vulnerabilities, it will be much easier to attack them from while connected to the wireless LAN compared to the outside internet.

My rundown of the tools available.

WEP - This is cracked very easily and quickly by well-known programs. Download aircrack and you can crack a wep network in less than 5 minutes.

Mac Filtering - You can still snoop the traffic with the right adapter, allowing you to spoof a MAC address which is pretty easy.

WPA1 - This can be cracked if your password is short, like a single dictionary word. Use a sentence instead.

WPA2 - Can't be cracked as far as I know.