Am I Secure?

21 Mar 2005 12:07 AM

Shannon

I an new to wireless.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and a 6000. Both run Windows XP home, and have
wireless cards that I use while on campus. But, while home, I noticed that
I caught the (Linksys) wireless signal of a neighbor's desktop across the
street. I could read all of his files.

My question is, can he, therefore, 'see' me and read all of my files?

Thank you.

21 Mar 2005 2:15 AM

Duane Arnold

Shannon <nospam@nospam.net> wrote in

news:M7mdndNnc8vbjaPfRVn-tg@comcast.com:

> I an new to wireless.
>
> I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and a 6000. Both run Windows XP home, and
> have wireless cards that I use while on campus. But, while home, I
> noticed that I caught the (Linksys) wireless signal of a neighbor's
> desktop across the street. I could read all of his files.
>
> My question is, can he, therefore, 'see' me and read all of my files?
>
> Thank you.
>

Many people leave the out of the box default settings for the wireless
setup leaving their wireless network open to attack. Maybe, you should
change a couple of things in the prevention area.

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.htm

And may be you should tell your neighbor if you can about his situation.

Duane :)

21 Mar 2005 9:39 AM

John Steele

Show quote Hide quote

>
>> I an new to wireless.
>>
....
>> My question is, can he, therefore, 'see' me and read all of my files?
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>
> Many people leave the out of the box default settings for the wireless
> setup leaving their wireless network open to attack. Maybe, you should
> change a couple of things in the prevention area.
>
> http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.htm
>
> And may be you should tell your neighbor if you can about his situation.
>
> Duane :)

My WPA/WEP key generator program - found here -
http://www.soroban.co.uk/wepkeygen.htm - can help to set secure encryption
settings by locally creating a random encryption key. All the other steps in
the link above are also relevant.

John

4 Apr 2005 10:06 AM

Alex

At 10:39:32 on 21/03/2005, John Steele delighted alt.internet.wireless by announcing:

Show quoteHide quote

>
> >
> >> I an new to wireless.
> > >
> ...
> >> My question is, can he, therefore, 'see' me and read all of my files?
> > >
> >> Thank you.
> > >
> >
> > Many people leave the out of the box default settings for the wireless
> > setup leaving their wireless network open to attack. Maybe, you should
> > change a couple of things in the prevention area.
> >
> > http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelesssecurity/tp/wifisecurity.htm
> >
> > And may be you should tell your neighbor if you can about his situation.
> >
> > Duane :)
>
> My WPA/WEP key generator program - found here -
> http://www.soroban.co.uk/wepkeygen.htm - can help to set secure encryption
> settings by locally creating a random encryption key. All the other steps in
> the link above are also relevant.

Except the "Hide the SSID" part.

21 Mar 2005 8:28 AM

1313

If he goes looking (and if your connected) he will see you as part of the
workgroup. If you do not have file sharing switched on he will not be able
to see your files. SP2 Firewall will also give you added protection.

On the other side he is wide open to attack!

Show quoteHide quote

"Shannon" <nospam@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:M7mdndNnc8vbjaPfRVn-tg@comcast.com...
>I an new to wireless.
>
> I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 and a 6000. Both run Windows XP home, and
> have
> wireless cards that I use while on campus. But, while home, I noticed
> that
> I caught the (Linksys) wireless signal of a neighbor's desktop across the
> street. I could read all of his files.
>
> My question is, can he, therefore, 'see' me and read all of my files?
>
> Thank you.