The wireless connection behaves exactly like a wired lan connection, so if people could see your files on your harddrive through your wireless connection, they could also probably do it through a wired connection.

To prevent this, you either need a personal firewall running on your computer, or you need to prevent other computers from joining the same wireless access point as you and the access point needs to be behind some firewall (if the access point is Starbucks, that's not gonna happen!). As mentioned before, WEP, MAC filtering, and SSID masking are some strategies for controlling who sees and uses private wireless access points. If manufactures would hurry up and start shipping these small wireless routers with EAP radius authentication servers built into them, they would be even more secure.

Like 03_AP1 said, Windows XP comes with a built in firewall. the version that's included with service pack 2 is light years ahead of the versions that came previously (the previous versions pretty much just turned on and blocked everything; there was almost no configurability; the new version offers WAY more options).

Chris.

 

Chris, could we hook up for a beer sometime? I'm in the market for a laptop and I obviously only know the basics (unlike you obvously).

 

[QUOTE=Woodson,Nov 24 2004, 11:30 AM]Chris, could we hook up for a beer sometime?

 

Not sure yet, but let's wait until then in case I can make it.

 

802.11i will take care of this.

Oh and as for the manufacturers doing something about security - it's done .