Netgear WGT624

[Elcs]

My dad has just informed me that he's purchased and is receiving a Netgear WGT624 v2 Wireless Router. YAY!!!

Networking is one of my biggest blind spots in computing so I very little about routers. I know what they are used for, the b and g standard (thank god this is g) and that they can be awkward to deal with at best.

He's rather smart so he'll have shopped around my extensive UK supplier bookmark collection to have got the best price for it, so how is this router compared to others? I usually research every single item then make a selected opinion on what to buy. I dislike googling up reviews since its easier to weed out fanboyism than it is to tell whether a reviewer has been biased in my experience so forgive me if this seems a bit of a noobish type post.

Im concerned about wireless security since all pc's will have 100% access to each other aside from VNC. What wireless security methods are there? I remember a post in GH stating that one of them was easy to crack but Im clueless. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I dont want people easily able to access my network.

 

[NuroMancer]

3 Easy Steps:

1: Disable the SSID broadcast. - Your network has a name, if you disable this users wanting to use the network need to know it's name.
2: Enable WPA AES or TKIP encryption - You need to put a predefined key on every computer that needs to use the wireless network. Make sure beforehand that all of your wireless cards support WPA
3: MAC Filter Addressing enabled: Every computer u want on the network has a MAC address, input this into the router.

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^ the above is a fairly well secured wireless network. Lots of people will tell you that you don't need to use this much security and it's a pain when people come over to get them on your network. It's up to you!!

Btw what you read in GH was how easy WEP is to break, WEP was teh ecryption standard to use before WPA. WEP is the one that is easily hackable but the question is, who's gonna hack your network? A war driver will most likely move on to the next house on the block that isn't secure if you impliment even some security.

Good luck!

 

[tropic]

I think #2 is the big step. Implement WPA-PSK on the router.

#1 and #3 are good only at keeping someone from casually or accidentally connecting to your router, and only if you don't have some sort of encryption going on. MAC addresses are quickly revealed when sniffing and easy to clone; disabling the SSID broadcast often causes disconnect issues, especially with Windows clients.

EDIT: forgot about your question regarding the WGT624v2. I used the v2 for a while, and it's pretty good for consumer wireless kit. It won't do AES, but it's fine with TKIP. Some people have connection loss issues and lockups with it. I only experienced problems when it came time to renew the DHCP lease from my ISP--a power cycle was required to regain connectivity. A couple of problems specific to the WGT624 are overheating (the Atheros chipset runs hot in that sardine tin--I drilled a bunch of holes in the case just to be sure, but mine never flaked out from heat) and a run of less-than-steady Netgear DC converters. I also got the best results from firmware v4.2.8.

 

[Elcs]

Thanks for the replies.

The security info was exactly what I was looking for. Also sounds very simple to do. Its not likely that anyone will try and hack into my wireless network but having 90% of the harddrives on the network being fully accessible and modifyable, I want to prevent any unsavvy neighbour picking me up and modifying something accidently or maliciously. It could be solved by a simple password allowing access but its a step which Id not like to take.

3 PC's will be wired to the router and 1 will be wireless. Hopefully we wont have any connectivity problems.

If the heat becomes an issue, I can always rig a 5v Panaflo to blow on it. Once I get my PVR system up and running, that will be fine. Ill dig up that firmware if I can find it.

Hopefully things will work out fine. At least now I have a basic understanding of security and model specific problems. Im prepared for practically any problem!