How to protect a wireless network?
 

I discovered that 3 neighbours are stealing my bandwidth, and I paid extra for a 1 meg line! My fault, I haven't protected my network - it's such a brain melter - but I need to get it sorted.

I'm running a D-Link 604 and Mac Powerbook with Airport card. In the advanced security in D-link's set up it won't accept my settings on wep or wpa.

Anyone here have a similar setup (PC or Mac) that can share some pointers? D-Link's site is a bit unhelpful in this area.

Cheers!

:-)

Mike

unplug it ? :p

being serious, if you cant encrypt it and you should be able to (firmware updates needed somewhere?) id look at MAC filtering, which it should also do. That'll stop it from talking to any other wireless cards but yours.
Turn off broadcasting SSID and change it too.
Encryption may be coz you are trying it @ 128bit or higher. try it @ 40(64) and it should work.

Steve

by MAC , i dont mean Mac - hope you realise that ;)

Also disble DHCP on that router. If you're only connecting with one computer it won't be too much of a pain to set up with a fixed IP. You'll also deny your neighbours from picking up a new IP. Maybe change the subnet, too?

As Steve said, the most common problem is 128bit WEP. Try 64 bit and you should be OK. Unless you've got loads of machines, specifiy the MAC addresses of your PCs and deny all others. Other than the normal disabling SSID broadcast and changing the SSID from the default setting, there is not a lot more you can do.

Chris

My collegue at work lives in a flat and has a number of free wireless broadband options !!!! Interesting why so many people have broadband and leave it open, I wouldn't worry about them surfing the net but be more concious about data protection and virus issues.

I have the D-Link 604+ and have no problems with 64bit encription. Download the latest firmware as I believe it fixed a few bugs and remember..DO NOT INSTALL THE UPGRADE ON WIRELESS BUT USE A CAT5 CABLE

I have the DSL 604, and have 128 bit encryption running and checking of Mac address, doesnt let anyone else on, I managed to lock myself out :rolleyes:

IIRC, I had problems somewhere, it may have been the PC with the network card, entering WEP keys as ASCII, but entering them as HEX works fine.

Wow! Thanks for the advice. I'll take this advice and report back!

:-)

Mike

How did you find out that they were stealing your bandwidth ?

I'm using a wireless lan & as far as I know any neighbours could be doing the same !

Cheers

Look at the DHCP table & see who's been allocated an IP address

I used my laptop and wireless card to do a bit of wardriving on my way home from work 1 day. I picked up around 25 access points, 20 of them with no protection whatsoever!!!!

A neighbour told me that the computer shop up the road and the bloke opposite were using my connection - then when he asked if I'd got a 1 meg line I realised that he was too as he mentioned that he had a wi fi laptop before.

I couldn't tell that they were using it, the base station led didn't suggest that it was being used and on my D link DHCP clients page there is no help as it says 'no DHCP clients available'. The log won't show anything over Sepy 2003 and won't refresh either.

Thing is that no matter what I put in code wise the 'enable wep wireless security' tick box won't respond to a click so it has got me tearing my hair out!

:-)

Mike

Maybe the log file has maxxed out the available memory? Try clearing it.

If you want to know about other wireless networks in your area, download a copy of Netstumbler. It's free and works very well!

Chris

Pocket Warrior (http://pocketwarrior.sourceforge.net/pwdl.html) is also good if you're using a WiFi-enabled PocketPC

Update: I couldn't set it up and after waiting 45 minutes on their help line without getting anywhere I hung up and thought 'hmm, I'm using Safari (Mac browser), let's try IE'. Guess what? It worked!

I'm now set up for 128bit WEP. :-)

Now I'll try some more stuff.

So, any Mac users out there, don't use Safari!

:-)

Mike

Download Wireless Watch. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4116.html free for a month and ma be just what you need to see who is using your connection