HOME SWEET NETWORKS

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Stop WiFi Drive Bys

The Annoyance:

My home wireless network has been acting funky and some of the settings seem to be changed. What's going on?

The Fix:

You could be a victim of drive-by hacking. Freeloaders may be taking a joyride on your home network, accessing the Net via your wireless connection or worse, pawing through your system. Keep in mind that a WiFi setup uses radio signals to broadcast data up to 500 feet from the router, which means a network you set up in your home office can easily extend into the street outside your house. In fact, seeking out unprotected WiFi networks called wardriving has become a favorite pastime of some geeks (see http://www.wardriving.com). A recent survey of some 225,000 home WiFi networks by WorldWideWardrive.com found more than 60 percent were completely wide open. Talk about an entrèe for freeloaders and hackers!

Aside from tightwad neighbors sucking up your Internet bandwidth, you could be a sitting duck for anyone who wants to troll your hard drive for juicy information. Even if your PC is protected with a firewall, somebody could use your LAN to send out malware-laden email or download kiddie porn and it will be you the Feds are chasing, not the bad guys. To find out if your WiFi network is open, download the free Net Stumbler (http://www.netstumbler.com) and run a scan (see Figure 2-4). If your network is unprotected, it will be listed with a green light next to it. (Secure networks have green lights with locks inside). Odds are you're giving the neighbors a free ride. (For tips on how to secure your WiFi network, see the sidebar "WiFi Tiki Tavi.")

annoyances 2-4. NetStumbler is a handy (and free) tool for finding WiFi networks in your vicinity and seeing which ones are wide open and easy to access. (Make sure yours isn't one of them.)


Share and Unshare Alike

The Annoyance:

I want to share some folders on my PC with other folks connected to my home network. But I definitely do not want to share all of them. How do I pick and choose?

The Fix:

To its credit, Windows XP ships with file and folder sharing turned off by default. With sharing turned on, anyone connected to your network can peer inside your files. (This led to a huge privacy snafu for the first cable broadband users, who were essentially connected to a neighborhood-wide local area network, which made it easy for neighbors to snoop at will inside anyone's shared folders.)

XP makes it fairly easy to share document folders across your network. Open Windows Explorer or My Computer, right-click the folder you want to share, select Sharing and Security, and then check the "Share this folder on the network" box to allow other folks on your network to read (but not edit) documents inside that folder. To let people edit your stuff, check the "Allow network users to change my files" box. When you're done, click OK.

To share individual files, drag the file into your shared documents folder (usually called "My Shared Documents"), and then change the settings of the folder as outlined above to make it available on the network.

With Mac OS X, you can share files and folders by dragging them into your Public folder and turning on file sharing (open System Preferences, select Internet & NetworkSharingServices, put a checkmark next to Personal File Sharing, and click Start).

Remember, if you have a WiFi network, follow the security measures outlined in the "WiFi Tiki Tavi" sidebar, or you could be sharing files with any snoop who passes by. My advice? When in doubt, make sure file and folder sharing is turned off and make My Documents (or whatever folders you store data files in) private. (For tips on how to do this, see the "Foil Hard Disk Snoops" sidebar.)

WIFI TIKI TAVI

Your WiFi network doesn't have to be wide open. All WiFi routers the boxes that connect your broadband modem to other devices in your home can be made more secure, though instructions vary depending on the equipment. You'll need to load the CD (or visit the site) you used when you first installed the router, and find the Advanced settings. Once you get there, take these steps:

Change your logons. Most routers come with a default logon and password for administrators (something clever like "default" or "admin"). A hacker could log in as you and change all your network settings. Change the defaults to something that's easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess.

Name your network. When you set up your WiFi router, you're asked to supply a name for your network (known as the Service Set Identifier, or SSID). Anyone who wants to log on needs to know your SSID, so pick one that's hard to guess. (For example, the default name for Linksys routers out of the box is, duh, "Linksys" something you'll want to change ASAP.) Don't forget to change the SSID settings for each computer on the network.

Interrupt this broadcast. Most wireless routers are set to broadcast your SSID to anyone that passes by. Disable this feature and it'll be much harder for strangers to find your network. Make sure you only disable SSID broadcasting; if you turn off anything akin to wireless networking in the router's setup screens, you might shut down your entire network.

Make yours scrambled. All WiFi routers come with encryption that scrambles data passing over the network so no one else can peek at it, but this option is usually turned off by default. You typically have two choices: Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) is considered weak encryption but probably fine for most home users; the stronger WiFi Protected Access (WPA) is harder to hack, but not all WiFi equipment supports it. Your wireless adapter(s) must support the encryption scheme offered by your router and provide the correct key (or password) for entry. If you're stuck using WEP, remember to regularly change the WEP key and always choose the 128-bit encryption option.

Check your firmware. Before you before up either WEP or WPA, download any firmware updates for your router and other WiFi hardware these patches may offer enhanced security features.

Change channels. Another good scrambling trick is to regularly change the channel your router broadcasts over. Since your computers already know your new and improved SSID, all you have to do is reboot them after this change and they'll find your network without a hitch.

Pull over MAC. You can tell your router to let only specific devices log on and reject all others. The trick? Simply add the each machine's Media Access Control (MAC) address, a 12-digit number usually found on wireless network cards, to the router's list of allowed devices.


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    Computer Privacy Annoyances
    Computer Privacy Annoyances
    ISBN: 596007752
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 89

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