[ale] Good wireless etup and security primer?

[Vincent Fox]

I like the Linksys WRT54GS a lot. It's Linux-based and there are
projects with alternate firmware. Personally I use the Satori 4.0
firmware found on sveasoft.com. It's cool being able to ssh
into the WAP and run Linux commands!

Check the dslreports.com forums, there is a Wireless Networking forum
with FAQ there and some links at the top to web-sites with background info.

As to security, modern WAPs offer pretty decent security with new
WPA encryption. However you are often hamstrung by what the client
adapter will support. Because I am running a community network
and users generally don't have the latest and greatest I have to
use WEP-128 keys and MAC filtering.

Recommend to use SSL and SSH instead of entrusting to the
security of the wireless protocols.

If you run a web proxy like squid, you can also tunnel over an
existing ssh connection so that web requests are further encrypted.
On the client side you start your SSH session and have 3128
tunneled to the proxy, and set your browser to use localhost:3128
as the proxy server.

> Hello all,
> 
> I'm toying with the idea of getting the wife a wireless setup for her
> laptop, but am definitely concerned with security for it.  I'm leaning
> towards Linksys gear.  Anyone got pointers to good tutorials on
> setting up and securing home wireless?
> 
> TIA,
> -- 
> Better Living Through Bitmaps
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale