Wireless networking - How secure is it?

[manicmic]

Hi

I'm looking forward to getting my new laptop on Tuesday and I'm thinking how to network the laptop to my desktop. I can't decide if I should go wireless or wired as some people have informed me that wireless is not secure even if you encrypt the signals.

What do you good people think. Is it safe to go wireless or should I go with wired?

[Fozzybear]

I'm not an expert by a long chalk, I've just picked up a few bits of info while setting up my own wi-fi network, but if you are in a residential area, set a good admin password on the router/access point, turn off the SSID transmit, select a pretty scrambled SSID name (like dg57g62g7b3 or something similar) and run 128 bit wep then it's probably pretty secure unless you live in an area where there are lots of hackers living near to you. Of course if you have the ability to firewall the link to restrict access to certain MAC / IP addresses and you run software firewalls on the PCs too then so much the better.

To be honest I don't know much about the crackability of these kinds of network, but I think that it really depends on your level of paranoia. If you feel paranoid even after all that then a wired network would be better!

[blobberTHEjobber]

It can be as safe as houses if you change the key every so often. The key has to be brute forced, by intercepting data. Restrict the data a potential hacker gets with each key and it's near-perfect.

[manicmic]

Hmm. I think I'm going for wired as with wireless it seems you have to know what your doing, and I don't. I knew nothing at all about networking until last weekend where I managed to set up an adsl/modem/router for a friend. It took me about an hour to work out but it's still working now, 1 week later, so I must have done something right.

Thanks for the replies. I'll leave wireless for another day (walk before running) :lol: