GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I need help with someone.. Let me describe my home network.I have a desktop and laptop computer both networked to share internet connection. Desktop Hardwire; Laptop is wireless.I Have firewall and Norton 2003 however how do I know if someone is using my wireless signal for internet access? How do I block this or does the firewall takes care of this..

The wireless routers I have used have a web interface to configure them, a built in web server. I can log on to it and although the two I use are different makes, they both have a way a web server that lets you check what computers are connected.Straight out of the box, the wireless routers are pretty open, but they support an encrypted mode. You can enter a key on the router and also on your PC, only machines that have the key can use the router. Some other discussion at http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=7186

The single best thing you can do is to enable WEP. I do computer security for a living and all the other features (no ssid broadcast, mac filters, etc.) are just small hurdles that will keep script kiddies out. With a 128 bit WEP key it takes weeks in a lab environment to break the encryption, with a small home network it would literally take months.

Wireless security is great if it's your network, but its also great if the other guy doesn't set it up. My family rented a beach house for a week, and I am getting free broadband access here because another beach house somewhere nearby has wireless with no security.

There is talk of setting up free wi-fi access in downtown Madison. I'm pretty excited about that. Then I won't have to pay Charter for internet access.

If you have a seperate router, like a Linksys, you can look under the DHCP Clients table in the status part of the configuration, and it'll tell you how many computers have connected to it. I agree with setting up the encryption, but turning off your SSID broadcast and setting up a MAC filter for the wireless is also a good idea.

I have a Netgear wireless router, and I don't enable WEP (slows down the transmission rate), but the thing i do is only allow my 2 wireless computers to access it. On my settings, there is an icon for attached devices (i think). From there I modify what wireless devices can operate from it.Of course security experts will disagree, but in my neck of the woods, if someone really wants to get on my network, they will, and there is nothing I can do about it. I also limit the folders that are shared on my network to ones with unimportant files (MP3's, movies, etc).

Quote, originally posted by futseal04 »I have a Netgear wireless router, and I don't enable WEP (slows down the transmission rate), but the thing i do is only allow my 2 wireless computers to access it.FYI..If you dont have wep enabled someone can pull up on the street outside your house and watch the traffic on your network.. see which websites you visit, etc.Also, mac filtering is not very hard to defeat..But on the other hand, mac filtering will definately stop soneone that doesnt know much and just tries pulling up outside your house and tries to associate..

Quote, originally posted by ullbergm »FYI..If you dont have wep enabled someone can pull up on the street outside your house and watch the traffic on your network.. see which websites you visit, etc.Then they will see me surfing GenVibe.......maybe then they will buy one......think I could get some advertising bucks from GM for this?

Quote, originally posted by futseal04 »Then they will see me surfing GenVibe.......maybe then they will buy one......think I could get some advertising bucks from GM for this?lol