Keeping the neighbours out of my wi-fi

T

Thank The Cheese

Registered
For the last few weeks I have noticed sometimes when I play games online, my ping fluctuates occasionally to 999ping, then back down -- as though someone is using the Net. Moreover, my download limit seems to have drained quicker than usual this month. Tonight I investigated and, to my surprise, my wireless router told me 3 computers were connected to the network!

damn neighbours are stealing my wi-fi! :mad:

Anyhoo, I've gone about trying to password protect the connection. I think I have succeeded, but I'd like to clarify that what I have done will achieve what I want. I'm a real n00b with this sort of thing, so I pretty much muddled my way through. I don't need complicated bullet-proof protection, just the basics.


My set up
- Mac OS X 10.4.5 & Windows XP SP2
- Netgear DG834G wireless router
- Netgear WGE101 wirless bridge

My iMac/iBook connect directly to the router through AirPort Extreme cards, my PC connects to the router through the wireless bridge.



Security Settings

Type: WEP
Authentication Type: Shared Key
Encryption Strength: 64bit



I set the WEP Key in the router's config settings and entered it when prompted in OS X (and on the wireless bridge so the PC can connect). All seems to have gone well. :D



So is that a good setup that will keep most neighbours from stealing my wifi?

Because I don't know much about networking, I'm not entirely sure what WEP is exactly. I was pretty much just wanting a password-protection sort of system. Is that what WEP is, or does it just encrypt the outgoing data to protect privacy?

thanks for the help anyway :)
 
Not sure of the actual mechanics of WEP, but works for me.

You can also limit the connection by MAC address, the physical address of the network card, which looks something like DF:00:L7:etc etc. Its just more hassle when some visitor wants to use the network as you have to give the visitor the password and the router the visitor's MAC address.

(PS- woot, 700th post)
 
Make sure you did not just password protect your router configuration. That will not do anything that you are looking for (but you need to do it, to keep squaters from just looking up the password for the WEP or turning it off themselves.
You need to use at least WEP protection. That is basically password protection for the wireless connection. It makes it VERY hard for the occassional squatter to use your connection.
 
On the DG834G (I have the same router), you have an added feature, called "MAC Filtering" which allows you to create a "whitelist" of devices (your Mac, your Wireless Bridge), and all other devices are not permitted to join the network.
 
WPA is significantly stronger, but also slows the network communications down (since everything gets encrypted in all directions).

WPA2 is stronger still, but it seems to cause drop-outs in OS X (for a friend of mine, anyway).
 
Yeah, if your neighbours are technical (and if they're willing to expend the effort to crack your WEP keys) then they'd be able to get your WEP keys in a few minutes.

WPA is what you need.
 
Thanks so much for the help guys :D

thanks for the tip about MAC address filtering, texanpenguin. I've added that, too, which will give me an extra level of security.


hmm, while I was googling stuff to figure out how to implement WEP, I came across a couple of forum posts that said WEP was pretty crap. But at the same time the average person will not know how to get past it, even if it is easy in relative terms.

I'll keep an eye on things, and if I find my wifi is getting gate crashed again I'll look into WPA :) I suspect the people stealing it are a couple of teenage girls living to my left, and I don't think they would go to the extent of hacking my security to surf the web.

thanks again :)
 
the mac filtering is what my dad does. he turms on all the password stuff, and then uses the mac address to keep people out. and we have never had anyone get in after he set it up. and when we need to add a new wireless computer, we add its mac to the filter, and then add the web password in the network panel on the computer, and it gets online.
 
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