Today I set up an encrypted wireless network in the house, and that turned out to be quite a chore.
We already had an unprotected but working home network. This update was because of the addition of another node, "Thunk", my resurrected Thinkpad for whom I used an old USB wireless-B from the junk box. I decided to cook the whole hog and protect the network with passwords and encryption codes, as well as change the name from the stupid default of "linksys" and to change the default channel from 6.
I did all this because just by looking at the available network connections list I could see all the neighbor's wireless networks, some protected, some not, most using the defaults right out of the box - including channel 6 - just like we did for so many years.
My desktop uses a direct Ethernet cable from the router instead of Wireless, so I never bothered with the network until Thunk of Junk came along. But once I get intrigued with something, I can't stop until I've nailed it.
I'm the honest type, and never messed with any of those possible connections, and hopefully so were the other members in my family. It is unlikely that we would because our in-house signal strength was better anyway.
This became harder than it should have been, because every computer is a different brand, from a different era, with different Wireless hardware. But now the network is kosher.
I was so busy doing this all day I got very hungry. After this blog posted correctly, I was completely done and went to eat something - content that it would be just a teensy bit harder for snoops and hackers to grab our signals. I'll bet that is really just a pipe dream.
We already had an unprotected but working home network. This update was because of the addition of another node, "Thunk", my resurrected Thinkpad for whom I used an old USB wireless-B from the junk box. I decided to cook the whole hog and protect the network with passwords and encryption codes, as well as change the name from the stupid default of "linksys" and to change the default channel from 6.
I did all this because just by looking at the available network connections list I could see all the neighbor's wireless networks, some protected, some not, most using the defaults right out of the box - including channel 6 - just like we did for so many years.
My desktop uses a direct Ethernet cable from the router instead of Wireless, so I never bothered with the network until Thunk of Junk came along. But once I get intrigued with something, I can't stop until I've nailed it.
I'm the honest type, and never messed with any of those possible connections, and hopefully so were the other members in my family. It is unlikely that we would because our in-house signal strength was better anyway.
This became harder than it should have been, because every computer is a different brand, from a different era, with different Wireless hardware. But now the network is kosher.
I was so busy doing this all day I got very hungry. After this blog posted correctly, I was completely done and went to eat something - content that it would be just a teensy bit harder for snoops and hackers to grab our signals. I'll bet that is really just a pipe dream.
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