SETTING UP YOUR HOME WIRELESS NETWORK

HOME WIRELESS NETWORKING 101

Most people by now have been using a wireless network in their home for years now, and wi-fi networks continue to grow each year as manufacturers continue to make new devices that require it.

10 years ago there weren't devices to stream movies from the Internet, like Roku wireless receivers - nor were there services like Netflix around for streaming them. Netflix was there, but strictly by mail. So if you're setting up a wireless network you are either:

• Replacing an old wireless router that died
• Have always used a desktop, but now you have and iPad or Kindle and would like wireless Internet access
• Have just purchased wireless blu-ray players and want to stream movies from places like Netflix or Amazon, or,
• Moved to a larger home and your old wireless router won't cover the new square footage coverage, or,
• Have just awoke from a long 15 year sleep and your trying to catch up with technology (I know who you are. I've seen your ad on Craigslist -"For sale: Packard Bell computer running Windows 98, complete with Epson dot matrix printer")

If you are replacing an older wireless router that has just died, or doesn't seem to make the distance any longer you are probably replacing the router below, one of the most popular wireless routers of it's time.

Linksys WRT54G

While many old routers are still working today they lack advancements in wireless security. Your wireless router may work perfectly fine for you - but you, and your data may not be as secure as it should be.

From this point on, I'll simply refer to these as routers. There is a difference between a "Router" and a "Wireless Router", with wireless being that difference. Typically on the front of your router you have a series of lights, and a WiFi icon which usually lights up once it is configured.  The other lights will tell you if you have a connection to your modem, and the rest will only light up when you connect a network device with a network cable. If one or more of those lights are off it either means nothing is plugged into that port on the back, or, the network device is turned "OFF".

THE BACK OF ONE OF THE MORE MODERN WIRELESS ROUTERS

This rear view of a still-in-production Netgear router is fairly easy to figure out, especially with the supplied chart that comes in the box with it. From the left we have a on-off button, a jack for the power supply, 4 RJ-45 network cables jacks, spaced farther away is a yellow RJ-45 network cable jack, and finally a USB port. The antennas are internal.

The yellow jack is what you connect the cable from from your Internet providers modem (Comcast, Windstream, etc.) to. Any network device close enough can plug into the 4 other jacks. If you're wondering about that USB port, wonder no longer. It's a relatively new feature that allows you to attach an external hard drive to it so that any data on it can be shared with everyone in the house. This comes in really handy for photos and music. 

You can also plug in a USB printer and make it available to everyone as well, although wireless printers are so inexpensive these days it's almost a waste of a USB port. I mentioned an external hard drive above, but it can also be one of those pocket flash drives as well.

SECURITY

Back to security. If you were to purchase a router today you would have several security options: WEP (oldest, and easier to hack), WPA,WPA2-Personal, and possibly WPA2-Enterprise. The most frequent choice is WPA2-Personal, with a choice of AES ( Advanced Encryption Standard ), TKIP ( Temporal Key Integrity Protocol or TKIP ), or both. I suggest both.

If you have some older wireless devices around the house you may find that they won't work on anything but WEP. On several occasions I've run into issues where the customer just got a "Nook" wireless book reader as a gift and their connection to the Internet kept dropping. It turned out (after exploring many different possible solutions) that it worked fine on WEP and only WEP. After explaining the security possibilities to them, they chose WEP so they could use that device. 

Many times a person may not feel comfortable setting up a wireless router, so they will call in "Uncle Bob" to configure it. If Uncle Bob is not available they may use the EZ-Install cd that came in the box. The ez-install cd will accomplish what you want - it will get your wireless devices on the Internet, but most do not suggest or tell you to change the SSID (name of the router), as well as the admin password to make adjustments via your web browser. Next to choosing "no security", these are two of the most important things you should do. Why?

Let's start with the SSID. Most SSID's are named after the brand of router you just bought, so if someone in your area clicked chose to see what other wireless connections were available and you hadn't changed it they would see "D-Link", "Netgear", "Linksys", etc. and to a hacker, half of the battle is already won - they know the brand of your router (some SSID's even have the model number as well) and the hacker can Google for the default admin login and password for that router.

That's where changing the admin password comes in. If you've changed it, they can't waltz in and either lock you out of your own network, or more likely, get your wireless password so they can use your Internet connection without you knowing it. This could have serious repercussions for you and your family if the hacker downloads music or movies illegally via your router. If they've done a lot of downloading then it's possible you'll get a warning letter from your ISP, or even worse, a visit along with a subpoena to take your equipment for evidence, and have their forensic team go through each device with special utilities, looking for the files, or deleted files.

It may not have been you, or anyone in your family that did this, but the trail leads them to your ISP, then to your modems IP address, and that's all they need. So if the ez-install cd doesn't prompt you for this you'll either have to try and do it yourself by going into the wireless router via your web browser, or call in someone with the expertise who knows how to secure your router effectively. Oh, one last thing regarding changing the name/SSID of the router; try to refrain from using your first or last names. If it's someone in the neighborhood and they see "The Smith's, or Andersons", they'll know who they're dealing with. Now that I've thrown that log into the fire, I'll end PART ONE on this topic -

'Nuff Said

Brian

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