Newbie Wireless Security Question: Seeing a Router

[Pretty Cool]

If I have a wireless router and enable the security settings, will others in my apartment complex be able to see my router if they have a wireless adapter? For instance, could they enter 192.168.1.1 and see the Linksys configuration screen? I know the page requires a username and password to continue, but just seeing the page gives people a potential target to attack. Or, does security prevent even the Linksys page from even appearing? Thanks.

 

[JackMDS]

When your equipment transmit the Wave propagate that is the of Nature.

So, Yeah other people might be aware that there is another ?WIFI? signal floating around.

However if you turn your apartment into a ?Faraday Cage? they will not see anything.

 

[eigen]

Yeah definetly turn your apartment into a faraday cage.Thats what I did at my house and not only do people not hack me any more but the govt has stopped controlling me mind..

 

[Pretty Cool]

Okay, I'll bite. What is a "faraday cage"? One other thing, am I correct in that if a computer cannot see the router, than it cannot access the internet using that account? Or, can you somehow use the connection even though you cannot get to the router's configuration page?

 

[wormsnotincluded]

I'm a newbie too, I just put in my dlink router a few weeks ago.

If enabling the security settings means enabling WEP or WPA, then people will not be able to see your router till they break your encryption. Google airsnort for how people might break your WEP. WPA-PSK is vulnerable to dictionary attack if you have a weak key.

Basically people have to be connected to your wireless network before that can start to hack your configuration page.

You might want to turn off SSID broadcasting too, not that it'll help that much.

 

[JackMDS]

Link: Wireless Security for the Home User.

:sun:

 

[Carp1812]

Originally posted by: Pretty Cool
Okay, I'll bite. What is a "faraday cage"?

Go watch Enemy of the State for an example. The building that Gene Hackman blew up had a Faraday Cage around his computer equipment. As I understand it, the magnetic fields produced by the large amounts of metal surrounding your equipment make it impossible for electrical impulses to get in or out. Maybe somebody more electrically inclined than me can offer more details?

 

[prometheusxls]

IIRC from college physcs, Any signal will produce current in a conductor. This absorbs the radiation energy and transforms to heat. I.E. it makes the signal disapear. What a farady cage does is it surrounds the signal source on all sides with metal that will soak up all the signal and prevent wave propogation outside the cage. It may also have reflective properties, I.E. the signal is reflected back inside the cage.

This is the kind of thing that you will have on PC monitors in a secure building. They have big metal shileds over the back of monitors ot prevent radiaiton from escaping and being able to see what you type with an antenna. It think that the cage has to be designed to have holes less thank the wavelength of the radiation that is passing through.

3x10^9 m/s / 2.4ghz = .125 m wavelength