Path Technology

You've read the last installment, and now you're planning a wireless network. Here is the all-important security portion of this overview.

Security is important in wireless networking as people can, can often do, and find ways to eavesdrop on your internal network - without you even knowing it!

Why would someone be interested in my network? A lot of times it's boredom. Literally. The latest pastime of "Wardriving", where people drive around with a notebook computer and special "sniffing" software, are looking for networks to invade. And it's not just to get valuable data. It's often to get access to an unprotected network to quickly drop 10,000 or more spam email messages out!

Encryption is NOT standard on the 802.11 protocol, and must be enabled via software upon installation. Worse, the basic encryption standard, wired equivalent privacy, or WEP, can be broken into fairly easily. Most modern 802.11 devices add much stronger encryption which should be enabled and setup.

Don't skip the security setup on your wireless network!