Re: Very simple request on Linksys.

From: Jack Sandweiss (sandweiss_at_comcast.net)
Date: 03/20/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:38:32 -0800

WADR, throughout this thread, I admitted my naivete, and asked to be
corrected if I was saying something stupid. Here is what the original
poster said "I am trying to make as secure as possible". Are you
telling me that WEP is more secure than WPA? You have no idea what my or
his home environment is like, nor what is on our hard drives. Some run
businesses out of their homes. I live in a high tech neighborhood, close
to an Intel facility, and many of their employees are my neighbors. I
usually have the option to connect to 6 wireless routers, and one has no
encryption. I tried to address his question "literally". Sorry for that.
Yes, it is often easier to break into a home and take the computer. If
you're a target, nothing will work. If you're not, then it's easy to
discourage passerbys. Why not do it with WPA? It's cheap and easy.

Jack

Woody wrote:

> It amazes me how many people read a bunch of rumored posts and instantly
> become experts on the subject. In a home environment WEP is just as secure
> as WPA encryption. Your rf signal is good for maybe 100 feet around tour
> house. Do you have that sensitive of data that someone would sit outside
> your house with a lab environment just to break your encryption? Would your
> neighbors be that interested in your data to set up a lab to try and break
> your code? Turn off ssid broadcast (this prevents most scanning software
> from seeing your id), Change ssid from default, turn on WEP 128 bit
> encryption, change user name and password to access router and you should be
> fine. You could also limit the number of dhcp users to two. Your more
> immediate concern should be from the wan port. Use one of the sites such as
> www,grc.com to verify all the incoming ports are stealthed. You may have to
> redirect port 113 to change it from closed to stealthed. Also a software
> firewall, anti virus, spyware cleaners, block third party cookies, hosts
> file, malware scanners are required tools.
>
>
> "Jack Sandweiss" <sandweiss@dslextreme.com> wrote in message
> news:113o484c1t9qje6@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>Phil-
>>
>>I looked up your router, and it supports 128 bit WEP, not WPA. You will
>>not
>>get good security with this router in my opinion. As I said earlier, I
>>recently bought a Linksys WRT54G for about $60, and it supports WPA-AES.
>>Remember, that your laptop must also support WPA. I just gave back a one
>>year old IBM Thinkpad Centrino (which only supported WEP) for a new
>>Toshiba
>>P4, and I set it up with the above router in about an hour. I think
>>that's
>>why you haven't seen WPA, etc, options when you tried to configure your
>>router.
>>
>>Jack
>>
>>
>>
>>Phil <mentzpnj@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>news:CJydnWIjhP0zR6bfRVn-hw@comcast.com...
>>
>>>Jack,
>>>
>>>Above my head! "63 character WPA", "WEP", "AES"...? You lost me. -
>>>Phil
>>>
>>>"Jack Sandweiss" <sandweiss@comcast.net> wrote in message
>>>news:113nlqgip9tv015@corp.supernews.com...
>>>
>>>>Unfamiliar with that "particular" router, but use 63 character WPA (NOT
>>>>WEP) encryption if it's available. If you can encrypt it with WPA, then
>>>>get a sofware firewall like free zonealarm to provide outbound
>>
>>protection.
>>
>>>>If WPA is not available, then get one that supports it. (I use a WRT54G
>>>>(linksys) router), and select WPA and AES when you configure it. It's
>>>>easy. Be sure and change the router default password.
>>>>
>>>>Jack
>>>>
>>>>Phil wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I have a Linksys wireless router (BEFW11S4), for which I am trying to
>>>>>make as secure as possible. I am no tech wiz, and the terminology and
>>>>>instructions I find in various Internet sources are of little help
>>
>>(i.e.,
>>
>>>>>MAC filtering, what is that?). My setup is very simple. One desktop
>>
>>PC
>>
>>>>>and one laptop using a Linksys wireless card. That's it. What do I
>>
>>do,
>>
>>>>>enter, and where, at the default IP address of 192.168.1.1 to make my
>>>>>setup as secure as possible? I changed the SSID to something else,
>>>>>and
>>>>>turned off SSID Broadcast, but doing that terminates access to the
>>>>>laptop.
>>>>>
>>>>>Thank you for answering what I am sure is a very elementary question.
>>>>>
>>>>>- Phil
>>>
>>>
>
>

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