Tips for Securing your Home Wifi Network

Tips for Securing your Home Wifi Network

As consumers upgrade their computers and laptops and are discovering the convenience of wireless computing, they may also be opening themselves up to attacks from random hackers. If you have a home network and it has wireless capabilities one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself, your computers and most importantly your data, is to secure your network. You may think you are doing a good thing leaving your wireless network open for your neighbors to use, but you may also be allowing people to use your network to download pirated music or movies (which you will be responsible for), send unsolicited commercial email (aka spam) or launch viruses.

Securing your network is fairly easy and can be done by just about anyone, even if you aren't computer savvy. If you are using a laptop you may want to connect your computer via ethernet cable to your router, while you are making the configuration changes. The first thing you should do is log into your wireless router and change the administration password and username if possible. Leaving the default settings is like locking your door and hiding a key under the mat. Next you want to enable WEP (wireless equivalent privacy) security on your router. If your router has 128 bit encryption use it, it's more secure than 40 bit encryption. If you have an older router you may only have 40 bit encryption, 40 bit encryption is better than no encryption so if that's all you have use it. You will need to enter the corresponding WEP encryption key on all of your computers that connect wirelessly. Reboot the router and verify you can still connect with the network cable removed. It would be easier to make all of the changes at once and the reboot, but if you make a mistake doing it step by step helps you find your mistakes easier.

The next step is changing the SSID (Service Set Identifier). The first thing you should do is change the name from its default setting. If your router lets you disable the SSID broadcast you should. Again make the corresponding changes on each of the computers that connect wirelessly and reboot the router. Once the router reboots make sure you can still connect to the network.

Your next step is to allow access via Mac addresses. Every computer has a unique Mac address that looks like 0A-3C-2A-55-E4-A0. Get all of the MAC addresses of all of the computers that connect wirelessly and restrict access on the router to only those Mac addresses. Reboot the router and verify you can still connect.

While these tips won't keep out sophisticated professional hackers they will keep out casual snoopers. Lastly on each computer make sure you are sharing only the folders that you want other people to be able to see.

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Jim Faller is an author for http://computers.6ln.com which has information about computer security, viruses, spyware, data recovery and backups

The Latest Technology, Wifi And Digital Cameras

We were all use to the idea of sending in our film for developing and waiting for our pictures to come back. It takes days before we can see those developed photos.

Then along came digital cameras and the world was taken by storm with this cool new technology. Suddenly you could take a picture and see the results immediately. At first these cameras were slow and not such great quality but still kind of cool. Then things heated up and now we have fantastic digital cameras of all sizes and shapes that can take wonderful images which can be shared instantly with your family, or the rest of the world for that matter.

The latest now in technology integration is WiFi and digital cameras. No need to even plug your camera memory card into a computer, or a printer at all. Now you can buy a digital camera that transmits the images via wireless technology. Yes, that is right, a wireless connection for your image uploads.

Now, you may be among those in the population that have not even gotten their hands around the whole digital image sharing thing yet. But this promising new technology may lead us to a world of fewer cables to plug in, quicker transfer of our images, and in the case of events in the world, the ability to share images of news almost instantly.

As we saw in the recent bombings in London, folks with cell phone cameras recorded the devastation they saw in the underground and shared it with the world in almost real time fashion. These new cameras may be able to take that sort of thing to an all new level. Imagine cities that implement widespread WiFi access and photographers with WiFi cameras capturing images of news and other special events. They could transmit those images right away and let the world see them. You may concern how it works? Here is am eaxmaple:

Nikon has released two models of digital cameras that are WiFi enabled. The idea is to be able to transmit your pictures straight from the camera to your computer or printer through a wireless adaptor. You bring up the images to transfer, hit ?go?, and they get sent through the air to your printer. The Coolpix P1 and P2 will be in the $400-$550 range in pricing and the adaptor is extra. They are competing with Kodak which released its own version of the WiFi camera in their Easy Share line of cameras this year. Kodak has already gone to making it easy to share photos by transmitting them at so called "wireless hot spots", usually cafes or stores where wireless access is sold or given away to customers. These efforts by the leading camera makers seem aimed at adding value to their already impressive digital technology.

Digital cameras continue to be hot sellers despite what some in the industry thought would be a slowing of sales this year. Many had predicted that cell phone cameras would slow digital camera sales, but this is not happening.

George Williams maintains many websites about network security, including Wireless Technology, and Wireless Transmitter. Please visit his websites and find more interesting issues about network.

WIFI Hot Spots

Wifi Hotspots

If you have a computer and live in the city then you have seen people sitting in caf?'s searching the internet on their own computers all over town. You might be thinking to yourself, I don't see any wires connected to their computer, how can they be connected to the internet? Wifi is the answer.

Wifi is a relatively new technology that enables a person with a computer (usually laptop) with a Wifi card to send and receive information through the air. Most Wifi cards can send and receive signals within a short distance of less than 100 feet, but that is usually enough for patrons to enjoy their coffee and check their email at the same time.

There is new technology that will be out shortly that drastically expands the reach of the Wifi signal to more than half a mile. This can help bring more people onto the internet without the expense of laying heavy infrastructure underground.

Many smaller to mid size cities are now planning on adding Wifi throughout the entire city. Just recently Philadelphia has made a deal with a telecommunications company to cover the whole city with Wifi signals. Other cities such as San Francisco are looking to cover their entire city with Wifi signals as well.

Jay is the web owner of http://www.dsl-in.com DSL, a website that provides information and resources on DSL, DSL Service, and DSL Service Providers. You can also visit his website at: http://www.dsl-service.us DSL Service

Issues Surrounding WiFi Security

For years, one of the most worrying problems with wireless broadband internet access was the issue of keeping data secure during the split second of transfer. If one does not take the proper security precautions, a clever hacker could intercept the signal to steal passwords or even financial information.

Fortunately, WiFi security has seen much notable advancement in the past few years. Encryption technology has become more and more sophisticated, and is now readily available in most devices. Some of the most common security encryption standards are Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) and WiFi Protected Access (WPA).

Jeremy Maddock is the webmaster of TeleClick.ca, a trusted source of telecommunications news.

Finding WiFi Hotspots

If you are taking a trip, but need to check your email and keep up to date with business, on the go, then a WiFi enabled laptop might be the perfect solution for you. Of course, the trick to WiFi laptops is finding hotspots in which to use them.

Before taking a trip, it is often a good idea to research businesses in your destination ahead of time, and find the best WiFi locations in the area. Some of the places you might want to look are hotels, libraries, and coffee shops, as such establishments often offer a free or low cost wireless broadband service to their customers.

Jeremy Maddock is the webmaster of TeleClick.ca, a trusted source of telecommunications news.

WiFi Range: What are the Limits?

Because of the fact that the WiFi networking standard uses very high frequency (2.4 GHz) radio signals to transmit data, its access range is usually quite limited. How limited, of course, depends on the type of WiFi hardware being used.

A single family home or small office, for example, could easily be covered by a single access point, but larger WiFi locations, such as universities and corporate headquarters often need a criss-cross of several different access points in order to serve the entire area.

In theory, this method of adding multiple access points can be expanded limitlessly, to the point of creating citywide blanket network. Such networks have been built, or are being built, in several major American cities.

Creating wide-area wireless broadband networks can lead to numerous advantages, including more mobility for users of WiFi laptops, WiFi phones, and WiFi PDAs.

Jeremy Maddock is the webmaster of TeleClick.ca, a trusted source of telecommunications news.

WiFi: What is it?

Most people have heard of it, but the obvious question often seems to come to mind: what exactly is WiFi technology?

The answer is that it's a way to transfer data wirelessly, using the IEEE 802.11 networking standard. It allows users to access the internet at high-speeds, without the inconvenience of being plugged into a cable or DSL connection.

The one limitation of WiFi is that it's primarily a short-range technology, so you do need to be close to a wireless access point or "hotspot" to use it. Because of its immense popularity, however, WiFi locations are relatively easy to find.

A good WiFi directory will show you that there are hotspots located in most high traffic areas, including airports, hotels, malls, libraries, and coffee shops. With the proper hardware, you can generally get internet access at little or no cost, if you know the right places to look.

Jeremy Maddock is the webmaster of TeleClick.ca, a trusted source of telecommunications news.