[Shop-talk] Wireless router - signal boost

[David Scheidt]

On Jan 23, 2008 10:56 AM, Ron Schmittou <rs1121 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> SO what should us more mechanically inclined than technically inclined folks
> do?  I thought setting up with a required key you have to enter was secure?
> How are people getting pass this?

There are two sorts of encryption used by wireless networks (Well, two
supported by the hardware,. there are other methods that work on top
of the network layer.)  These are WEP and WPA.  WEP is seriously
broken; you can get software that will crack it in minutes.  It is,
unfortunately, still in wide use, and the default for lots of routers.
 The newer standard is WPA.  it's much stonger encryption.  It's not
as widely used, because for some time, there was poor support for it.
However, anything sold with the Wi-Fi trademark on it in the last four
(almost five) years supports it.  There's no excuse to be using WEP
these days, given the prices of decent replacement hardware.

Make sure you use WPA, a decent shared passphrase, and you'll be okay.



-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com