Noob wireless Q's....

S

squatpuke

Limp Gawd
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May 30, 2007
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Gettin' ready to install my first wireless devices at home..DLink DGL4500 and VAIO Laptop using 11g.

Been googling security and from what I can tell (beyond a VPN) WPA2 is the way to go...then WPA and WEP...

SSID off and apply MAC filtering...(does this sound bout right for the basics?)

Was just wondering about router CPU overhead and throughput....should I worry about this at all with my new router? Does one encryption add this overhead more than another?

I'll only have 1 VISTA wireless laptop in a wired LAN of 2 XP comps and an HP printer...

Also...my cable modem does VoIP, but the phones plug into the modem which is the gateway, prior to and bypassing my router...thus, I can't really use QoS right with the VoIP traffic right?

Thanks for your replies...
 
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about hiding the SSID, no security benefit and you may run into issues with your wireless printer getting to connect. You can MAC filter if you want but if someone can crack your WPA2 key then they can spoof your MAC address too. WPA2 is just fine and will work great if all of your devices support it.

Don't worry about qos for your voip, the cable modem handles that for you, at least that's what your ISP will tell you. :D
 
Just use WPA or WPA2...no need to worry about hiding your SSID..just make it unique, and change your default web admin password for the router. MAC filtering can cause hiccups too..don't waste your time. For home WPA/WPA2 is fine.
 
Captain Colonoscopy said:
You can MAC filter if you want but if someone can crack your WPA2 key then they can spoof your MAC address too.
Click to expand...

You don't need to break any encryption to see the MAC addresses of devices.

MAC address filtering is unnecessary if you'll use WPA/WPA2, as it'll be difficult enough anyway to get onto your network.

At the moment AFAIK, the only way to break WPA/WPA2 is a dictionary attack, so use a random jumbled password with numbers, not dictionary words.

As YeOlde mentioned, change your router password too.
 
I know you don't need to break any encryption to get MAC addresses. The point I was trying to make is that there is no point in using MAC authentication with WPA/WPA2 because if they can crack your key, the MAC filter is not going to stop them, they probably know enough to spoof the MAC address, too. :D
 
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