I have a linksys router and, as my neighborhood has caught up with ages, I feel a need to secure my network. There are several options to secure it like WPA (several versions), and WEP. Which should I use?? Then, when I tried WEP, it asked for a pass phrase to generate these different numbers and letters. When my computer asks for a password, do I give it that complicated pile of letters and numbers, or do I give it the pass phrase? Thanks.
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Security On Linksys Router
- Thread starter macgeek77
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Yes, never ever use WEP. Using MAC address filtering is better than WEP. The latest incarnation of WEP hacking can take as little as 7 seconds. Ironically, it's more convenient to hack a WEP network than it is to type in those stupidly long keys. WPA is more secure and you can set a password that you'll actually remember, so if friends come over and need to use your wireless network it's not such a huge deal.
well it depends on what you have the your computer wireless setting at. I want to say the OSX can do both. I am at work and can not check it on my mac right now and when i set mine up I used that long string of numbers but that just because I have the string of numbers saved as a text file on a flash drive.
WPA I have learned is flaky at best getting it to work. I got to the point I just gave up trying to get it to work and I went with a WEP setting. The secuirity on the wireless is not going to stop some one who wants to hack into from doing it but it does keep the casual person off your network.
Others have listed good ways of making your network secure. You are running on a linkising router and that means you can get some pretty good 3rd party firmware for it that allows you to change the power out put of your router.
For example the network in my apartment runs on WEP. Does not broad caste a SSID, and its the wireless out put is only 10% of its strength. So even if some one wanted to get on my network it is harder to find and it barely covers my 1 bedroom apartment.
WPA I have learned is flaky at best getting it to work. I got to the point I just gave up trying to get it to work and I went with a WEP setting. The secuirity on the wireless is not going to stop some one who wants to hack into from doing it but it does keep the casual person off your network.
Others have listed good ways of making your network secure. You are running on a linkising router and that means you can get some pretty good 3rd party firmware for it that allows you to change the power out put of your router.
For example the network in my apartment runs on WEP. Does not broad caste a SSID, and its the wireless out put is only 10% of its strength. So even if some one wanted to get on my network it is harder to find and it barely covers my 1 bedroom apartment.
I have a question dealing with WEP and WPA... what is the difference between WEP-open and shared... and WPA-PSK, etc.?
WEP Open allows any client to associate with the access point before verifying the key. WEP Shared requires the key to be exchanged in a less secure manner before even assocating with the access point. WPA is a vast improvement upon WEP and the PSK stands for Pre-Shared Key. A pre-shared key is simply a password that you set up on each device ahead of time. WEP is a method of gaining access to a wireless network as well as a weak encryption method. WPA is a method of getting access to the network and works with either TKIP (an improvement to WEP) or AES (totally different and very powerful) encryption.