Wireless: If I use access control (by MAC #s) do I still need encryption?

[PremiumG]

I find that using WEP encryption slows down my wireless network and weakens the signal. So on my netgear, i just use access control which allows only the NICs in my house to connect (identified by MAC #s).

Is this a good substitute for encryption?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Not really. They're both fairly weak protection, but together they make it a little bit more difficult for someone to tag along.

 

[AFB]

Nope. You just have to listen to the traffic to find out the valid MACs. Once that is done, you can change yours.

 

[OdiN]

Yeah MAC filtering is relatively easy to defeat with a packet sniffer and some other choice programs. Using both 128-bit WEP encryption and MAC filtering together will keep most people out. If someone really really wants in, they can hack in.

 

[PremiumG]

i thought MAC#'s are hard coded into the NIC cards and cannot be changed?

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: PremiumG
i thought MAC#'s are hard coded into the NIC cards and cannot be changed?

http://www.klcconsulting.net/smac/

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: PremiumG
i thought MAC#'s are hard coded into the NIC cards and cannot be changed?

Not at all. In fact, some older Sun systems (new ones might do it too, not sure) use one MAC address for all cards in the machine. I think that was actually part of the ethernet RFC (or so I heard), but I never read the RFC to find out.