wireless ethics?
 

Yo, i got a wireless network and its got all its wep and stuff running and i'm like this is cool me ->^_^. And just a few days ago some one plugs in a wireless netowork thing and has it set to default stuff. And thats fine except my windows xp comp is oslating back and forth bewettn the two and his/hers isnt connectd to the net and so what do I do to fix either the oslating or get his to stop brodcasting w/o breaking ne laws cuz atm i'm like this -_-<wtf mate i cant play games w/o a good network>

umm... you're over 18, right?


more than likely, your router should have more than one channel it transmits/receives from. change the channel your router broadcasts on and this should go away.

Did you change the default SSID on your AP?

If you didn't, silly you. Do it now. It's standard practice.

Once you have a different SSID, you simply configure your client to associate with your SSID and not theirs.


Mr Mephisto

k they are on different chans
and mine has a diff ssid but my computer still oslates back and fourth bewteen the two his/hers is compleatly defualt

You mention you're using Windows XP.

Are you using the native WLAN services in XP, or have you installed the client software that came with your WLAN card?


Mr Mephisto

Chaning channels won't help.You should try using the built in wireless ability in XP.

1. Open your Network connections. Youll find it in the Control Pannel.
2. Right click on your wireless connection and click on properties.
3. CLick on the wireless networks tab.
4. Check the box that says "Use windows to configure my wireless network settings".
5. Look below that option Available Networks: highlight your SSID
6. Click the configure option and enter your WEP key.
7. At the bottom of this tab youll find Perferred Networks: highlight your SSID and move it to the top.
8. Click OK


Thats it.

Funny as I look At my Available Wireless networks I see 3 ,1 is wide open , sad.

The advice txhospitality will work if you let XP control your wireless settings.

Personally, I prefer using the client software that comes with the card. But then again, I tend to use Cisco or IBM kit, so maybe I'm spoilt... :)


Mr Mephisto

Incidentally, WEP sucks as a real security measure. If you are really concerned about security, look into setting up ipsec.

Yea, both WEP and WPA are bad for security - though WPA isn't as bad as WEP. The only way to be sure is to secure with IPsec. You should be able to find lots of info through Google on how to do that.

heh, this is a funny topic. I work for a computer company and I was called out to install dsl in a residence (apartment) about a week ago. They had a 2-wire DSL modem (modem/router/wireless in one box) and wanted to hook up another computer across their house with a wireless pci card. When i fired up that card I found 7 OTHER wireless networks of which over half looked to be still at default settings just by looking at their SSID's.

To answer your question, I chose the ethical standpoint, but I cannot be held liable for what each individual tenant in that particular apartment complex does. I'm sure that someone is stealing bandwidth there, but I tried to protect MY customer and explained to them the need to change wireless devices from their defaults. It was a good object lesson for them and made them aware of the fact that there were all these wireless networks available and if they hadn't set theirs up correctly, they could be wide open to "broadband theft"

Yeah... but no.
 

Actually, that's not entirely true.

WPA used properly completely mitigates all known hacking attacks on wireless networks.

WPA comes in two modes; EAP based and WPA-PSK.

WPA-PSK (Pre Shared Key) is the method that small home networks will use. It's basically a framework for key management that allows your AP and station (ie laptop) to regularly regenerate brand new keys. The basis of this is the "Pre Shared Key" you enter on each (the AP and the client). If you follow the original specifications and use a key that is long (ie, 14+ chars, but ideally 20 chars) and is not a common dictionary word that could be easily guessed, then you are fine.

A good example would be something like "1q2w3e4r5t6yKID994#@"

In other words, some random or pseudo-randon string.

WPA also introduces TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol), MIC (Message Integrity Check) and BKR (Broadcast Key Rotation).

All of these features combined make your wireless network very secure against all but the most sophisticated and high-powered attack; in other words 99.9% of normal "opportunistic hacking attempts".

The IEEE is due to ratify 802.11i in July which completely replaces WEP with AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) which is currently the "gold standard" in network encryption. In September, the WiFi Alliance are due to publish the WPA2 standard and start testing in their labs. WPA2 is simply a marketing term for 802.11i so as not to freak non-technical users with too many strange sounding standards (the "alphabet soup" of 802.11 standards).

So, in summary, WPA is entirely safe (as long as you use a decent key length and avoid easily guessed words).

If anyone wants more information on this or associated wireless networking topics, please feel free to ask.


Mr Mephisto

k thx for teh helpz and the wep is there just to try pesky neighbors from stealing bandwith

WEP also helps to encrypt your data. It's a good thing to use if that's all you have.

WEP, or Wired Equivalency Privacy, does encrypt your data. That's all it does.

WPA can be considered "extensions" to WEP. As I said above, they add extra security settings that improve the security, but WPA Is still basically WEP. Think of it as WEP on steroids... :)


Mr Mephisto

Much thanks for the detailed explanation, Mr Mephisto :D

I was a little fuzzy on WPA, though I'd heard a few things about how it can be cracked (given the initial key exchange packets and a not-so-tough password). You've definitely enlightened me. :)

Another thing to consider is that many WAPs can be configured with MAC address filtering. Set it to only allow your machines on, and you are pretty well good to go. Still use WEP to encrypt your data (as weak as it is, its better than nothing), but between the two, you can do *much* better than the standard, out of the box config.

At least as far as I know. Mephisto will probably tear this apart as soon as he sees it ;)