Who's using your wireless? Find out.....

How to know whether your neighbors or others are using your wireless network is rather complicated. If your neighbors are experienced Wi-Fi hackers, you might not be able to tell at all. If they’re just stealing your Internet connection, you may be able to tell from the logs on your router. You could look for logs such as current LAN clients, connection or status log, or connected MAC addresses.

Check MAC ID addresses

To find out who’s on your wireless network, you’ll need to start by taking inventory of all the devices that are meant to be connected. Find out their MAC IDs and their IP addresses (if they’re static).

To find out the MAC ID/IP address on a PC, click the Start menu and choose Run. Type cmd and click OK. In the screen that opens, type “ipconfig /all” (without the quotes) and hit Enter. The MAC address will be shown as the “physical address.”
Once you know the MAC addresses of each of the PCs on your network, you will recognize any addresses that don’t belong under the screen that shows the MAC addresses of current connections.

Check IP addresses

Likewise you may be able to see how many IP addresses have been dished out by the DHCP server. If you check the IP addresses of each of your PCs, you can see if other IP addresses have been served.

To find out your IP address from the Start menu, click Run. Then type in cmd and click OK. In the screen that comes up, type ipconfig which will display the IP address for that computer. (Bear in mind, however, that if the PC is set to auto detect settings, then the PC’s IP address will change the next time the computer is rebooted or switched on. Sometimes previously served numbers have not yet expired, so you may think someone is connected when they are not.)

Dealing with intruders

If you do find someone using your connection, they may well not be doing so maliciously or even knowingly. Sometimes people can’t tell which is their own connection and they may honestly believe that they are using their Wi-Fi router rather than yours. The best way to deal with this is to set up your own security and maybe you can help them find their own router!

The optimal solution is to set up a strong password using WPA and change it regularly. Once your network is functioning, you can switch off the SSID broadcast (which prevents it from advertising the name of your network) so it would effectively disappear as far as your neighbors are concerned, and the first you might hear of it is when someone complains that their Web connection has disappeared.

R O U T E R

## Tricks for installing a wireless router

The trick to successfully installing your router is to read the manual. Every router is different; even two models from the same manufacturer can have significant differences. Familiarizing yourself with the manual will help your success in the long term.

There are two steps to installing a wireless router:

• The first is hooking it up and switching on the wireless aspect. You need that wired connection first so that you can set up the wireless aspect.

• The second part is setting up your broadband connection. That is usually just a case of pointing the DNS to the modem. Most setup installations will guide you to do this. Of course, this is assuming you have a broadband modem and not an integrated wireless router and modem in one. If that’s the case, you’re going to have to hit the books…and read the manual!

One of the things that freaks people out most is the fear of putting a wrong setting into the router. Don’t worry. There is always a reset option that will allow you to easily take it back to the factory settings. Also, always be sure to make notes about what you’re doing every step of the way. That way you can easily go back on what you just did.

The information in this tip originally appeared in the Wireless Basics online class discussion.


## Best way to secure your wireless router

• Update the firmware in your wireless router(manufacturer's website, make and model needed)

• Broadcast SSID(turning of the SSID can cause connection problems)(When changing any type of security, change the SSID name to make it easier to connect)Use WPA PSK(TKIP) Security. WEP can be hacked and not all devices work with WPA2 Security.

• Mixed b and g mode(n if available)

• Used channels 1, 6 or 11. Most devices work better on these channels.

• Save and exit. Power everything off wait 30 seconds and turn everything back on.

• Connect to your new secure network. No need to worry about intruders, WPA cannot be hacked.

• Remember if using a print server, wireless printer or wireless devices, you also have to reconfigure these to work.

How not to get hacked

It's important to know how not to get hacked. The following details the layers of security you can place on your wireless network, as well as the effectiveness of each layer.

In some ways, securing a network is like the security on your home:

• Leave the front door wide open. Seen by curious honest people and criminals alike as an open invitation to enter. See, it even says ‘Welcome’ on the doormat!

• Shut the front door. This will keep out an honest person, but a crook wouldn’t be deterred, as they’ll walk right up and try the handle.

• Lock the front door. This will again keep out the opportunist thief who will only try the door handle or climb in open a window to see if he can get it. Luckily most criminals fall into this category, so lock your door!

• Bolt the door with deadbolts, bars on the windows, and alarms. It takes a lot more to keep out the determined criminal who, with a little equipment and know-how, might pick the lock, disable your alarm, or break your whole door down!

#Wireless security falls into the same categories:

Leaving the door open: an open invitation

• Broadcasting a default SSID
• No MAC filtering
• No encryption
• DHCP switched on/No access controls

#Shutting the door:

• Changing the SSID (the name) of your network and disabling SSID broadcast. The determined hacker can discover this, so it merely protects you from the opportunist who’s in a hurry.

• Disabling DHCP/Access Control. This will not stop a hacker with even minimal knowledge, as there are many tools which will sniff out available IP addresses on your network

• MAC address filtering. A hacker with only a little know-how will be able to clone your MAC address--and see everything you see on your network.

#Locking the door

• WEP: Wireless Encryption Protocol can be hacked in seconds using free tools that are widely available.

#Bolting the door

• WPA: A randomized pre-shared key of at least 10 characters would take half-a-million years to crack. More info about this here. (Note: A random key means that it shouldn’t be a word that exists in any dictionary (hackers have extensive dictionaries that include all common passwords, English words, nicknames, and misspellings of words. This is called a “dictionary attack.”) A random key is a meaningless mix of lower- and uppercase letters and numbers, and sometimes special characters like punctuation, depending on whether your router supports it). If you’re not sure how to get a random key, you can generate a simple WPA key online on my Web site or a more complex one here. You can also get software that will generate a key for you (type “software generate wpa key” into your favorite search engine).

It’s best to build up each type of security in layers, checking that all devices can connect and communicate at each step before adding another layer. Make sure you read your router’s manual to ensure you’re storing the settings correctly (some routers require you to save the settings each time you make a change or the changes will be lost).

Be secure!