[NTLK] wireless connectivity

[Michael Grossman]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010, Morgan Aldridge wrote:

> Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:31:07 -0400
> From: Morgan Aldridge <morgant at makkintosshu.com>

> (which I highly suggest _not_ doing as it's easily & quickly hacked
> these days) or turn off encryption completely for the Newton to be
> able to connect. My guess is that both are not going to be options as
> this is a business WiFi access point.

I sometimes wonder whether WPA/WEP encryption are really necessary for
home networking. My wireless signal is pretty severely attenuated by the
time it goes through 2 walls. Out in the yard, it's pretty much hopeless.
I can detect a few neighbor's routers, but they're just barely there.

Is there a documented case of some evil dude sneaking around sniffing home
wifi networks for passwords and personal info and causing real trouble?

I think, in 5 years of having unencrypted Wifi, the only odd thing ever to 
turn up was a neighbors ipod touch accidentally connecting to my router 
when his was down. WPA2 was so easy to set up that I succumbed and turned 
it on when I got my last router. (I usually buy cheapo walmart linksys 
routers. They usually die in less than 2 years. No idea why.)

To get my Newton, Zaurus, and old macintoshes working I downgraded from 
WPA to WEP64. I also turned off broadcast SSID in the router. And I only 
allow known MAC addresses to connect. I realize this can easily 
circumvented, but there's no sense in advertising my network's presence.

You could connect another wireless router with a wire to your main one and 
just have an unencrypted wireless subnet for your newtons, PDAs whatever. 
(I sometimes bring a spare router to friends' houses and do this; older 
folks 'round here don't even know their own Wifi passwords, letting the 
cable guy set everything up.)

The local community college has unencrypted wifi, but nothing works except
http. No ssh, no chat, no file sharing...just censored (by keyword) web
pages dished out by their crap-slow proxy server.