[MathiasDK]

Hi.
I have an iBook 800 w/ airport card and a D-Link wireless router.

How do I put a password on the network so ny neighbours can't sit in their levingrooms and use my connection?

I don't need any fancy encryption - just a password to protect the network.

Thanks.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by MathiasDK:
I don't need any fancy encryption - just a password to protect the network.

That's just the thing, you do need fancy encryption, otherwise any passwords could very easily be captured. Using a wireless network that way is like standing in a crowded room and yelling a password to someone else, and hoping that no one else is listening.

You could enable mac address filtering, if your router supported it. That allows only cards that you specify beforehand to connect to your WLAN. However, that is easily circumvented by capturing the mac address of one of the allowed cards and spoofing it.

You can enable WEP encryption, which would require you to create a key and enter it on your wireless clients before they can connect. That's probably the closest thing to what you want to do that your router/card can support. Unfortunately, it's also very easy to crack WEP.

Ideally, you'd want to enable WPA - which is very secure - but your router and airport card probably don't support it. I'm fairly new to Apple hardware, but I think only the Airport extreme cards support WPA. I am using WPA with an Airport Extreme card and basestation, and I'm very satisfied with it.

Unfortunately, those are really your only simple options, before you start getting into more advanced authentication methods, which it doesn't sound like you want to bother with.

[chabig]

The older airport cards support WPA now, as of Airport software 3.3's release. But for you, I think 128 bit WEP is probably just fine. Also, set up the router to not broadcast its network name (SSID) and name your network something hard to guess. Finally, use MAC address filtering.

All of these should be configurable through your router's browser interface.

[jasonsRX7]

Also, you should consider making these changes from a physical network connection, as you'd get dropped from the wireless network while you were making changes... A simple tip, but a common mistake.

[MathiasDK]

Thanks.

I live on a closed road, with 25 meters to the closest neighbour who is a 65-yearold woman...

How do I enable WEP?

[jasonsRX7]

Originally posted by MathiasDK:
Thanks.

I live on a closed road, with 25 meters to the closest neighbour who is a 65-yearold woman...

How do I enable WEP?

Watch out, she could be 1337 h4x0r

Without knowing your routers interface exactly, I can just tell you to go into the configuration and look for the wireless security settings. You want to look for an option to enable 128bit WEP encryption. You'll have to give it a key, either ASCII or Hex. There are some pages that will generate a key for you, here and here.

Now, write that key down, or copy it into a text file, and save the settings on your router. It'll probably have to reboot, and when it comes back up, your iBook won't be able to connect. When you try to connect again, you'll have to enter the key. Once that key has been saved, you won't have to enter it any more, and your wireless data will be encrypted.