[sc_markt]

Sorry if this has been asked before but how secure is Airport? I know it takes a password but what I want to know is this: Can people read what your typing on the screen while your communicating with airport? I'd hate for somebody to get my passwords or email information.

Thanks to all who answer.

- Mark

[mduell]

Airport is no more or less secure than any other wifi hardware out there.

WEP is pretty easy to crack, but WPA is secure enough.

Of course, always use encrypted protocols (HTTPS/SSL for web pages, POP3/SSL or IMAP/SSL for mail, etc) when on a wireless (or wired) connection.

[sc_markt]

So I'm assuming Airport has WPA?

On those encrypted protocols, do you set them up in airport?

Sorry for asking what probably seems like stupid questions. I'm really close to getting a new mac (Macbook Pro) and am considering airport so I can easily get on line anywhere in the house.

[ghporter]

WPA is MORE THAN SECURE ENOUGH. The actual encryption is quite robust and the only exploit ever to succeed against WPA attacked the passphrase itself-and only worked against incredibly stupid, short passwords that were regular words. Use a long, complex passphrase that has no regular words in it and includes digits and punctuation/special characters, and you'll be fine.

While your traffic is still transmitted through a radio link, with good encryption it really doesn't matter that anyone who wants to can intercept it-they can't do anything with it.

One more thing to think about is called "MAC address filtering." It has nothing to do with Macintoshes specifically because MAC stands for Media Access Control, and the MAC address is the hardware address of a ethernet or wireless network card. (Purists will argue that the hardware address of a wireless card is not strictly speaking a MAC address, but it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and we can use it like a duck, so for our purposes it's the same thing.) MAC address filtering allows you to specify which ethernet or wireless network adapters are allowed to join your network, blocking all others. AirPort supports this through the Access Control tab in the AirPort Admin Utility.

[sc_markt]

If I understood you correctly, with the MAC address filtering, you use it to block other computers with wireless cards from accessing your airport? (I know you can use a complex password to block access).

And on the subject of encryption, does airport encrypt the signals that it receives (and also transmits) to your computer?

- Mark

[ghporter]

The password prevents others from being able to make use of the signals the radio portion of the wireless network sends back and forth, but does not necessarily prevent an intruder from gaining some access to the network. On the other hand, MAC filtering prevents intruders from gaining any access to the network but does not protect the data being transmitted between the router/base station and the computers. Using both is a good way to protect both.

[sc_markt]

Thanks ghporter.

Mark