right i have connected my router to my old laptop and now have that all sorted and connected to the internet ( was a piece of piss )
turnt on my new laptop and turned the wi-fi on and it has picked up the router and im connected to the internet,so far so good
but it has also picked up 2 other wireless connections that are security enabled WTF is that all about,lol?
the connection im using is defo my router as it says its my belkin,lol. but it says its an unsercured connection
so my question is how do i make it a sercure one that only i can access?
dont really want to network the 2 laptops together,just share the BB internet

any ideas?

 

One for Jim me thinks Pops

 

I think you need to read the instructions that came with the router, I enabled mac address filtering and wep encryption, as I didn't want anyone else using my connection It is easy to set up and I would also advise changing the password for your router settings menu and also changing your network name so no one knows your make of router, as if you can see other networks, they can see yours and may use yours to file share and if anything goes wrong you will be the one in trouble as your ip address will be logged not theirs.

hope this helps.

 

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right got that sorted
changed the SSID and enabled WEP 128
surely i aint got to type in that load of numbers every time i want to go wireless on the lappy

 

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right im gonna try it,lol

 

you was right,lol
i used a passphase to genarate the key code, will i ever have to use this passphase again?

 

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right cheers guys,think im all sorted now,wasn't no where near as hard as i thought it would be,infact it was piss easy
mind you i surpose it helps that i aint networking the 2 laptops together and just sharing the BB internet ( no need to have them networked really )

last question,lol. i take it that if i was to turn the router off ( power cut just say ) that when i turn it back on again i wouldnt have to reset anything would i?

 

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the passphrase is just an alpha version of your hex key... dont bother writing it down

also as discussed, use WPA if possible. (the belkin supports it, just make sure your laptop does)

MAC Filtering seems like a good idea in theory, but in practice its a pain in the arse... avoid (imho)

also turning off DHCP is not exactly a good security feature, to someone like myself that'd hold me up a whole... well... 10-15seconds? again, not worth the agro.

one thing tho,dont use 192.168.0.x as the subnet, it's a fookin broadcast address dunno why the manufacturers sship it as the default!. use 192.168.1.x just make sure the 3rd octet isn't a 0 or 255

 

what does that mean thne jim? the broadcast bit?

 

it means if your router can be seen or not. you wont pick up a router that doesnt broadcast it's SSID, you have to know it's there and connect to it by knowing the name.

it's also about as secure as... well... somehting that aint very secure but will put off 99% of normal home user bods

 

i meant the i.p 192.168.0.* you said something about it being a broadcast address? or do you mean that if it was changed, then normal cards wouldnt pick it up on a scan as such?

 

ah, the 0 bit in the IP address means it broadcasts on that subnet, ie if youve got a network with say 300 computers in it and theyve got .0 in the ip address, when you send data from one to another, it will actually send the data to EVERY MACHINE in the network. now you may think that dont apply to home users, but add more than 2 machines on the network (remember the gateway thingie counts as one) and start doing more than 1 thing at a time, and it will eat up your crappy 54mb of bandwith in no time at all and slow all the machines down.

 

try gtting a proper ping program (not microsoft built in one its shit) and pinging 0.0.0.0 on the internet... it's quite a laugh

nowadays your ISP will block it, but back "in the day" you'd just kill your PC doing it

 

well at the mo, my subnet mask is 255 onwards. is that ok? the only thing that is 192.168.0.1 is my router.

 

sorry i'm talking geek confusing terms...

a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a IP of 192.168.0.1 means you have 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.254

if it was 255.255.0.0 it means 192.168.0.0-192.168.254.254 (IPs are 32bit so go from 0 to 255 per octet)

It just tels the PC how "big" the network is, so it knows that if youre asking for an ip address that's "bigger" than the local subnet then it needs to go via the router rather than going stright to the PC

it's just that having 0s in an IP address is BAAAAAD infact if i did something like that at work, i'd be sacked

 

so what should i change on mine then?

 

Jim/anyone, do you guys have any gen on how to find WEP keys? I know there are programs that "listen" and after a certain amount of data recorded, it can find the WEP key, but the only program I've seen looks like a coont to sue and is unix based (so I cant run it).

Any ideas?

 

hmm, that sounds pretty interesting.