is my wireless conction secure?

i made a ssid name.set up wpa-none .data encrypion says tkip and i set up a network key.so am i secure?main thingg i dont want is for people to be able to axcess my pc or use my interent conetion am i safe?

Should be good to go as you've mentioned some encryption put in (WEP?)

I personally use WAP as I heard it's more secure. There's a password I needed to set and how many minuites you want before the key expires.

The WAP-PSK in my netgear WG614v6 router is enabled like this.

If you want, you can make your network key/password really hard to guess by using both capitals and lowercase letters plus numbers (I even made some numbers the numeral such as "2" and other numbers you have to type out such as "three" plus a bunch of other crazy characters thay you have to press shift to type in [!@#$%^&*()]. Mine is about 50 characters long and it takes me almost three minuites to type it in.

WAP keys can be anywhere from a minimum of 8 characters to a maximum of 63 characters on my router.

WEP will work fine for most people but I've read that they can be hacked

Just how easy is it to use someone's unsecured network?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v499/yuandrew/CPF/000_0264.jpg

Just two clicks on Belkin AC (My neighbor three houses up) and I'm on CPF using their internet connection.:tsk: You can see how many networks can be avaliable in one little street.

(My neighbor knows anyway)

But at least the rest are secured. My connection is broadcast, but I'm using WPA preshared and the tkip algorithm. I'm also using MAC address filtering with only my laptop and PSP on the list. I feel fairly secure since a person would still have to get fairly close to use my connection, and I think it's decently secured. Living in the most wired city in the US, I'm sure that there are much easier targets to use.

If you do not broadcast your SSID and you use TKIP, you are as safe as you can reasonably get without buying more equipment, MAC filtering is good but is easily bypassed.

last night i started to think lol this wireless adpaters stink so im safe they dont travel to farso unless the people next door are trying to hack me im safe with no protection at all lol i realy dont understand this stuff at all.i didnt even no this netgear ma111 had wap on em thye was cheap

The PSP is a great little 802.11b wifi finder. Whenever I want to update my PSP, I just start walking around with it until I find an unsecured wireless network that lets me in and download an update.

The good thing about wireless is the small footprint. You can let security slide just a bit because your exposure is limited to your immediate local geography. Enabling basic security typically means that any potential "bad guys" will just move to the next unsecured network to save time.

Here's a good website to help make sure your computer is protected.

Shields UP!

Don't let wireless security slide... With postage stamp size antennas you may only have a few hundred feet of range... With a large directional antenna you can get miles of range.

Also, many folks leave their routers setup with default passwords assuming nobody can get in... Yet, many leave the corporate name (like netgear or belkin) advertised on their wireless networks with no security. Somebody with virtually zero experience can hack that...

In the end, WEP is probably OK, WPA is better. Look at the value of your network/data to decide how much effort it is for somebody hack.

If you have 33kbaud dialup and your term papers on your PC--nobody is going to take the effort to hack. And, if they do, you are not out anything. If, you are running a high-tech startup and people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hack your system--nothing is safe.

And, remember that all of your data is going over the Internet anyway in the clear (unless you are using https or other security scheme).

In the end, professional hackers are going to go after large databases that have valuable information (like credit cards and corporate/government databases). The script kiddies are going go around your neighborhood and see what kind of grief they can cause.

The only reason that somebody will hack you is to get free Internet and your own data... Usually, this is only worth a few hundred dollars at most.

And, in the end, probably most of the home security break-ins are because somebody ran a program from a friend/web site, or opened an email that installed software to violate your security.

Most people are not running web servers and ftp servers that provide access points (assuming that you have file sharing turned off--if it is turned on, you are very vulnerable).

-Bill

WPA is vulnerable to dictionary attack. WPA is reasonably secure if you use a hard-to-guess passphrase that's 20 characters or longer.

WEP is absolutely not o.k. It is hacked very easily.

But regardless, you should take steps to secure the devices on your network. You're still connected to the Internet, after all. Make sure all of the Windows accounts on your PC have passwords set. Turn on the Windows firewall. Set the password on your internet sharing box ("router"), if you have one. Turn on Automatic Updates, and make sure you have virus software installed.

Like Unicorn, I believe in MAC address filtering as a belt-and-suspenders approach. FInd out the MAC addresses of your wireless NIC and program that as an "allowed" address in your router. Everyone else will be denied the ability to connect (although they won't be denied the ability to sniff the traffic - that's why encryption is important).

i aint useing a router.just a wiresless adapter on desktop and laptop and i use desktop to conect to internet thru dial up .then use laptop to surf wireless thru desktop.man i hate dial up .o i used shields up last night all the boxes was green