[TheZee]

I am wondering if readers of this post can list some of their favorite internet security/privacy Applications that they use frequently. I have grown concerned of outside intrusion into my wireless network. Particularly, is it possible for an individual to tap into my wireless connection and view my internet behavior ??? Can another person know the sites I frequent when I am OnLine ??? If so, is there a good security/privacy tool that I can ustilize to help prevent outside snoops ??? I use an ivory white iBook G3. I installed an original airport card (not extreme) which connects to a NETGEAR wireless router which, in turn, connects to a WestGate DSL modem using an ethernet cable. My wireless router base station is approximately 20 feet from my laptop. I notice that sometimes there is hightened activity, with the lights on the router blinking as if I am downolading something when in fact I am not. Sometimes it is now occurring when I am not utilizing my browser. When I am using a totally unrelated app. I use LittleSnitch Applicaiton which is fantastic. I do not fear that this activity is because of some app phoning home. I am concerned that it may be someone hacking into my network in order to take a free ride on my account or to infiltrate my system covertly in an attempt to gather personal information. Is there a good application that monitors if someone other than myself is attempting to listen in on me or jack my connection ??? Thanks for any and all guidance given my Mac brethren Peace Out . . .

[ghporter]

Use WPA with a good passphrase - make it nonesense (or better, random characters) and long. That will keep all but the most dedicated, most sophisticated, and most well equipped listener from knowing your surfing habits. In other words, except for the National Security Agency, you'll have nothing to worry about.

If your wireless router supports it, use MAC address filtering as well. That way you can set your hardware up to ONLY connect the devices YOU specify.

Finally, the extra activity you see on your modem and router is probably completely benign. Most likely it's the router reconnecting, or a background process on your computer, and nothing to worry about.

[TheZee]

I saw that on the configuration page which I access via the web that there is a section entitled MAC address. I wasn't sure what it was. Can you tell me a bit more about it ??? If I understand correctly, you are saying that I can instruct the router to connect to just my laptop ??? That would be awesome. I was also wondering what kind of drag on performance using WPA security would be. Does it significantly reduce connection speed, load & download times and the like ??? I actually attempted to change the security settings on my router last night but didn't have much success. Not giving up though. From what I am read so far, WPA is the way to go to ensure maximum level of security. One additional question I have that relates to this topic has to do with creating different networks. Can I keep my current network that utilizes WEP security settings and add another network with all the same info as the first but the only difference is that this other network would utilize WPA security settings. That way, I would be able to pick and choose which level of security I wanted to use at any given time. I did notice that under the WEP security setting, I have the choice of either 64bit or 128bit encryption. Which is better ??? Does changing from 64bit to 128bit affect the performance in any way ??? Do WEP and WPA have only to do with the router itself ??? Like me wanting to be able to switch between two identical network profiles. The only two differences would be the name of each network and one would have WEP Encryption and the other would have WPA Encryption. Is that doable ??? Is that a waste of time and energy ??? Would you advise just choosing one preference set and sticking with it ??? Thanks for any and all guidance Peace out . . .

[ghporter]

Yes, it DOES tell the router to connect ONLY to your laptop if that' what you want.

Background: in wired networking, each network card has a (supposedly) unique identifier called a Media Access Controll address or MAC address-and it has nothing to do with Macintosh. This address is how a router (for example) can tell which card to send things to, because it has already associated each card's MAC address with the IP each card is assigned. Still with me?

Technically, wireless cards don't have MAC addresses, but they have a hardware address that's the same size and of the same format, so if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck we can call it a duck-or a MAC address.

So your wireless card has a (supposedly) unique signature, and you can tell your router to either allow or disallow specific addresses, so allow the MAC address for your AirPort card (which you can find from Network Preferences) and that's that.

For me, WPA doesn't seem to have a noticable performance hit. I can be on a wired computer right next to my wife surfing on her wireless iBook and not see any difference.

I would just upgrade anything you're using WEP with that can't handle WPA. WEP is like having a licorice bike lock; it may look like it's secure, but it really isn't at all. If you're stuck with WEP, you'll need to have the WEP stuff on a separate network from the WPA stuff, because the hardware can usually only do one or the other. And using 128-bit WEP is the better of your WEP choices. Really, if at all possible move everything to WPA...

[TheZee]

Awesome, awesome, awesome !!!
Thank you so much for the information and guidance. I feel 100% better and I am going to attempt to switch over to WPA from WEP as well as set the MAC address option. That is so cool. I am fortunate that you responded to my post. I didn't have a clue as to what the MAC address was but now, thanks to your excellent teaching lesson, I have another weapon in my security arsenal. My router does offer the option of either WEP or WPA security so I think I can just go in and change the wireless settings. Right ??? Are there other settings that I have to change when I change over to WPA ??? You said that I can get the MAC address of my airport card from Network Preferences Pane right ??? I take it that I simply input that info into the MAC address section of "Wireless Settings" for my router. I am using a NETGEAR wireless router. I purchased it bout 7 months ago so it has all the currrent technology, including WPA and MAC address options. AWESOME !!! I am so psyched about this !!! You the man my Mac Brother !!!
Peace out

[ghporter]

Once you change the router to WPA, the client computers should all see the change and ask for the appropriate passphrase. I like to write a small text file with the passphrase (which should be LONG and completely random for maximum security) and copy it to a USB "thumb drive" and use that to give each client the new passphrase. After that it's done!

You are right about the Network Preferences pane giving you the MAC address-this is true of all network cards in a Mac. It will be in the form of "FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF" where "FF" is a pair of hex characters. This is the value you want to enter in your router's "allow" MAC address list.

[marden]

Where could I get the "Dummies" translation of this thread (which must also include a glossary of all abbreviations and tech terms) and instead of a wireless, it would be for an iMac running 10.3.1?

[TheZee]

I cannot thank you enough for sharing your knowledge with me. Ok, the issue I am having now is that when I change my router settings as we discussed (having the router focus on my MAC address only and use WPA instead of WEP) it does not respond when I attempt to access the web as usual. After changing the settings, if I try to go to a website, I notice that the lights on the router do not indicate any activity and then an error message appears that says that Safari could not access the site because the server could not be found. When changing the router settings, do I need to change other settings somewhere else ??? When I switch back to my original settings, everything works Ok again. My NETGEAR wireless router requires me to go to a website specifically for my router in order to change its wireless settings. I can then change the settings, click apply to apply the settings and then the settings are changed. Do I need to change anything else ??? Like in Network preferences ??? Or do I need to create a new network ??? Your shared knowledge is golden my Mac brother !!! Peace out . . .

[ghporter]

Zee, are you using a computer wired to the Netgear router, or doing the changes via wireless? I should have mentioned that any configuration changes on wireless equipment should be done wired to make sure you don't get yourself locked out or otherwise encounter a problem.

Marden, I can start with a couple of the acronyms. WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, which is not true of this encryption scheme. It is seriously flawed and now is almost trivial to break-there are people who play with breaking WEP-protected connections for fun because there are so many tools available to do it with. WPA stands for WiFi Protected Access, which is a truly secure encryption scheme specifically for wireless networking. As long as you use a good passphrase, it is solid. A bad passphrase is a short one that is simply made up of words that can be found in a dictionary; note that the only successful exploit against WPA to date has been to attack the passphrase itself, not the encryption, so making the passphrase strong is essential.

A subnet is a subdivision of an IP network. IP networks are made up of systems identified by IP addresses of the form nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn, where nnn = 0-255. A subnet mask, as I mentioned to The Zee, tells the computer what other IP addresses it can associate with. The mask value 255 says that the computer can associate with any IP address that matches its own in that position: 255.255.255.0 says the other computer must match the first three groups, while 255.0.0.0 says only the first group must match.

How's that?