Comments on: Protecting your Airport network.

By: Gvadi Bigva

Gvadi Bigva — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 22:18:07 +0000

Hi, all.
I can see from the above posts, that you guys all are very advanced in network issues, and if not strong solutions, you seem to have strong questions. Mine is very simple. I have a MacBook and router and airport express. My nephew has a Dell laptop with wireless card. We want to set up the closed network so that our neighbours would not allowed in and use our traffic. Please, give us a simple advice how to set up a closed natwork, as we are not very advanced in IT technologies, there are not sophisticated issues of either wep or wap as our neighbours are on the same level of IT skills and if they encounter the closed network they won’t go online to find the crack to intrude. thanks in advance.

p.s. I tried to lock the network from applications/utilities/airport set up assistant, but then my nephew cannot access the internet.

By: dalia

dalia — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:10:21 +0000

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so im going to giv eyou some information about it

What is the most important information I should know about hydrocodone and acetaminophen ?

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Avoid alcohol while taking hydrocodone and acetaminophen . Alcohol can increase drowsiness and dizziness caused by the medication, possibly resulting in unconsciousness and death. Also, acetaminophen can be damaging to the liver when taken with alcohol.

hydrocodone and acetaminophen may increase the effects of other drugs that cause drowsiness, including antidepressants, alcohol, antihistamines, pain relievers, anxiety medicines, seizure medicines, and muscle relaxants. Dangerous sedation, dizziness, or drowsiness may occur if hydrocodone and acetaminophen is taken with any of these medications. Tell your doctor about all medicines that you are taking, and do not take any medicine without first talking to your doctor.

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have a great day

By: trapp1

trapp1 — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 13:38:10 +0000

Array

By: dale

dale — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:24:52 +0000

is there a way to see if people are leeching off your network? I have an airport extreme base station and macbook pro.

thanks

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 01:55:49 +0000

I can’t figure out how to even start. I have a powerbook G4 and an airport extreme but I don’t know if it is private access or public. I don’t want anyone else to jump into my network. I went into system pref and under network, but I don’t see anything that I can click on to make my network/wireless private. could you tell me step by step, how to do prevent others from joining?

Thanks

By: hydrocodone link

hydrocodone link — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 02:23:01 +0000

hydrocodone link hydrocodone link

By: TiM

TiM — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:32:49 +0000

is it possible for someone to steal your wireless signal and then password protect it so that you cannot access it? if so how would you be able to take it back and set up a WEP password to prevent this?

By: Mac4L1ph3

Mac4L1ph3 — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 07:46:36 +0000

..in addition to all the above, I also turn off DHCP, and limit the number of IP’s that get handed out to exactly the number of physical machines in my home.

By: eat people

eat people — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 07:27:43 +0000

all your wifi WEP are belong to us. ;-)

By: bibb

bibb — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 17:39:24 +0000

all good, useful stuff. thanks again!

By: Rich Trouton

Rich Trouton — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:20:36 +0000

bibb,

On the road, your level of authentication is determined by the wireless access point you’re connecting to, so that’s by and large out of your control. At home though, I would definitely set my Airport base station to use either WPA or WPA2 authentication (WPA2 compatibility was just introduced by Airport 4.2 this past week for Airport Extreme cards.) That way, you have a more secure encryption scheme than is possible with WEP encryption.

Getting back to being on the road, especially at areas offering free WiFi, you’ll run into some security worries, since those networks may be essentially wide-open with no protection against other people also on that network from trying to intercept your connection’s traffic for nefarious purposes. One safeguard I’d recommend is to sign up with a VPN provider. Using a VPN will allow you to encrypt your traffic being sent over the WiFi connection, making it secure against someone who’s trying to scan your network traffic to pick up passwords or other information. If you have a VPN account from your school or workplace, this will work to protect your connection. If you don’t have one, two providers of public VPN services that I know of are HotSpot VPN and Public VPN.com.

By: bibb

bibb — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:55:58 +0000

thanks, rich. if i’m understanding your answer correctly, i think it means that, while i’m at home, wpa is ideal; but if i’m on the road and hit one of those access points that can’t understand wpa, i’ll need to use wep.

By: Rich Trouton

Rich Trouton — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:15:07 +0000

bibb,

The main reason to choose WEP over WPA is compatibility. Almost all wireless cards on the market today can use and understand 128-bit WEP, no matter what access point it’s being served from. That’s not necessarily the case with WPA, as not all wireless cards and access points can understand and use WPA.

From the Mac perspective, all Apple Airport cards running on OS X can use WPA. For those using other cards, check the manufacturer’s website to see if they have been WPA certified by the WiFi Alliance, the standards group for WiFi. The WiFi alliance also maintains a listing of WPA-certified equipment on its website.

By: bibb

bibb — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:44:37 +0000

if wpa is the strongest method of encryption, are there any down sides? in other words, is there a reason why you wouldn’t choose this option? thanks.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 19:16:16 +0000

Thanks for the reply. The reason I was interested is it would seem like an interesting and useful project to set up a neighborhood wireless network so that a large area could share one access point. But the most obvious concern is that each users connection be secure and one user not be able to take up all the bandwidth downloading from BitTorrent.

By: Rich Trouton

Rich Trouton — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 15:04:48 +0000

Jacob,

Yes, it’s possible, but it’s something that takes more expertise than I have with networking to do, so I can only give you the broad outlines of how to do it. What you can do is have two separate wireless networks running, one “private” and the other “public. You’d then have the “public” network be run through a proxy server or VPN which would have bandwidth throttles running on it. The proxy or VPN would also have to be on a different subnet from the “private” network and so not allow access to that network, but would still be configured so as to have access to your internet connection.

By: Jacob Albertson

Jacob Albertson — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 03:04:11 +0000

I have a pretty simple. Is it possible to share you wireless internet while still maintaining a secure connection for your data and possibly controling the bandwidth of other users sharinig your network.

By: Rich Trouton

Rich Trouton — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 01:04:49 +0000

MAC filtering, by itself, isn’t the end-all and be-all of security. Neither is encryption (though it’s the best at standing alone), and neither is SSID hiding, when each method is used by itself in isolation. Combining all three makes your wireless network a much tougher nut to crack.

By: Kenners

Kenners — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:55:03 +0000

Here is a GREAT URL which dispels some myths about wireless security; READ!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=43

MAC filtering isn’t so great, unfortunately.

By: Twist

Twist — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:07:33 +0000

For people using any base stations change your network name, login, and password. I have seen many running with the factory defaults for login and password. I have actually logged in to a few and “fixed” a setting or two.

Also a little performance hint is use some scanning software like KisMAC to see what channels other wireless networks in the area are using and pick a different channel than any of them for your network. This will help increase your range and connection speed (this is the issue I have “fixed” on a few “open” basestations).