Airport Express Privacy?

[adk]

I live in a college dorm, if I were to get an airport express is there any sort of privacy protection that would keep neighbors from connecting and playing airtunes over my stereo?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Password protection:

 

[adk]

Ah, thanks. It is also capable of WEP right?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Ah, thanks. It is also capable of WEP right?

For networking, yes. But don't use WEP, that's totally cracked, use WPA or even WPA2 with a good, long password, that should give any wardrivers something to chew on...

You may also turn off SSID boradcasting and enable MAC filtering, but the most important thing is to use a good strong encryption, i.e. WPA.

 

[Bibulous]

.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

In 2005, a group from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation gave a demonstration where they cracked a WEP-protected network in 3 minutes using publicly available tools.

Wikipedia

 

[Bibulous]

ok, I don't have a lawyer

 

[iBS23]

WPA, turn off SSID, MAC filtering, are all essential in the dorms. Too many people who will try to crack it just for something to do.

 

[Bibulous]

i...

 

[Kobushi]

Password protection:

Hey.....what are you using to edit your little screenshot there. (i.e. the red arrow and the blurred speaker name)







Also, it doesn't hurt to make your network "invisible". People aren't likely to try to break in if it doesn't pop up on their list of available networks.

 

[Bibulous]

Hey.....what are you using to edit your little screenshot there. (i.e. the red arrow and the blurred speaker name).

Looks like crap to me.

 

[adk]

WPA, turn off SSID, MAC filtering, are all essential in the dorms. Too many people who will try to crack it just for something to do.

Elaborate please. Are you saying I should be operating in stealth mode? I definitely feel like a bastard when I don't share Itunes over my network.

 

[Kobushi]

Elaborate please. Are you saying I should be operating in stealth mode? I definitely feel like a bastard when I don't share Itunes over my network.

You can share your itunes with all this stuff enabled (I think). That's just a function of itunes (see itunes preferences).
The encryption they're referring to keeps you from sharing the rest of your computer and can be found in the airport setup utility.

 

[iBS23]

Elaborate please. Are you saying I should be operating in stealth mode? I definitely feel like a bastard when I don't share Itunes over my network.

You can share your itunes with all this stuff enabled (I think). That's just a function of itunes (see itunes preferences).
The encryption they're referring to keeps you from sharing the rest of your computer and can be found in the airport setup utility.

Yes and no. By turning off the SSID you are attempting to keep all out that you have not given the network name to (to some extent -- your network could still be found). As Mitthrawnuruodo showed, the password would keep others from playing music to your stereo. However, when you say share itunes over the network, are you talking about the actual iTunes library? I thought that I read that the current version of iTunes doesn't allow this without third party software. (Unless you're talking about sharing the actual song files in your iTunes directory). And I'm not sure how that software works as to whether it would work with a WPA encrypted network.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Hey.....what are you using to edit your little screenshot there. (i.e. the red arrow and the blurred speaker name)

Photoshop.

I just found myself a red arrow, which I open along with the screenshot, paste the arrow into the screenshot and Free Transform it to fit, then just flatten image, save and upload.

Blurring is just Gaussian Blur filter on one of more selected boxes...

Looks like crap to me.

It's not meant too look perfect, just a quick and dirty job to point out what too look for...

 

[crazzyeddie]

Ok, I have my setup configured exactly as you want.

1) Check the box "Create a closed network" - this is Apple's equivalent of not broadcasting the SSID, so you will need to manually type in the network name the first time.

2) Use WPA(2) unless you are using some other wifi device which needs WEP.

3) Put a password on your AirTunes.

4) Don't let the Airport Express distribute IPs. This will let you have a regular IP given by the school's network and allow you to share your iTunes. Without disabling the Distribute IPs box, you will not be able to share tunes and may not even be able to browse the net.