Join the BAWUG mail list or search for Pringles can or Yagi antenna.

I imported some dish antennas and have successfully connected at 11Mpbs using the WAP11 over 9Km line of site.

 

Rich,

I'm not an expert in this area. I know that the 802.11 protocol in and of itself is not very secure. I guess they leave that up to you to do in some other way. Some of these devices may have additional security built in. On the other hand, if the built in firewall in one of these devices only protects the DSL side of the router the wireless side would be wide open, but again I don't know. I have a wired network at home so I don't have to worry about it. I just don't think it's wise for an admitted novice, such as the person who started this thread, to just go blindly installing something that may leave his systems vulnerable. Since he seemed to be asking two distinct questions I thought I would suggest a solution to one of the questions while making him aware of the vulnerabilities of the other.

 

Sorry if this is obvious, but.... what can happen if my setup isn't secure?

Thanks for all the replies... all you guys helped me a lot!

 

Basically it means that people can eaves drop on the packets you send to and from your AP. They can also decrypt them if they are WEP encrypted.

However, the likelyhood of someone wanting to do this over the level of difficulty required to do it is a calculation on you can do.

 

You can get a router, OR.....

You don't have to spend that much money on a router. Just get another cheap NIC and a cheap hub, and run ICS (MS Internet Connection Sharing) on 1 computer. So the computer running ICS has 2 NICs, one connecting to the DSL modem, and one connecting to the hub. It will act as a gateway/router for the other computer. Then configure the other computer to grab IP's dynamically, and you have 2 computers that can access the Internet.

If you want security, ICS has a basic firewall built into it, which you can configure. I think that is all you need for 2 computers at home. Get the router for more protection if you're really worried about security. But I really dont think some hacker is gonna sit there spending that much time trying to bust into someones personal computer.

 

The drawback to using ics with windows is that you must then keep the gateway computer turned on at all times...this can be a real inconvience. The cost of a router is so minute and the features that they can give (DHCP, Port Routing) are so useful, i would definately just pick one up. As for wireless security, i have a WEP key on all my wireless devices, and this would prevent someone with a wireless device from stealing bandwith from me or snooping my wireless packets...but if someone did manage to look at my packets, all they would find out is the names of the baseball players on my fantasy baseball team and maybe a couple of hotmail emails....i'm not too worried about it

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jayel
[B]

 

my nextdoor neighbor in college had a cable modem and a wireless AP without WEP and my roomate and i both bought wireless cards and used their bandwith for free for weeks before i felt bad and asked about splitting the bill with them. I probably could have got away with it all year no problem...remember to turn on WEP!!!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lehighwiz
[B]The drawback to using ics with windows is that you must then keep the gateway computer turned on at all times...this can be a real inconvience.

 

check out this little device , it can do DHCP also, so there is no need to even worry about networking. Just install wireless devices in all pc's and then enable DHCP. <italian mob voice>Foget 'bout it</italian mob voice>