2011-01-16

Is it Impossible to Secure Home WiFi?

So for an unsophisticated, or lazy, home network user wanting to have a wireless home network, is there a way to secure the home wifi network?  It seems not.

You could use WPA-PSK security protocol with a long and random password, then it'll get hacked in 20 minutes for less than $2 in computing power.

You could put in a mac address filter, so that only those computers with a registered mac address can even get on the network to begin with.  But it turns out mac addresses aren't just easy to modify, but they are communicated on the wireless unencrypted in the open, so it can be easily spoofed.

Another measure is to go with static IP addresses and a restricted IP pool, so there's less chance someone can get an IP address to your network while you're connected.  But it turns out my wireless router is too cheap to let me set static IP addresses on the LAN.  sigh

So am I supposed to install a RADIUS server now?


Instead, I turned down the wireless router's signal power, since I don't even go far from the router when I use the wireless.  At least hackers will have to be physically closer, I guess.


And maybe I'll try to find another ethernet cable so I can just turn off the wireless entirely.  A lot less headache than trying to secure an open channel.

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