Michael's Guide to Wireless Security

In the old days, if you wanted computers in various rooms of your home or office to be on a network, you had to run Ethernet cables through your walls and into each room. If you wanted to move a computer from one location to another, you had to go into the walls again and install another drop. While this is the route that most large businesses still take, you have another option. If you don’t want the trouble of running cables, you can opt to use wireless networking. It is often called “Wi-Fi.” This stands for Wireless Fidelity, and I think most people agree that it is a terrible name because it makes no sense.

Wireless networking works much like your cordless phone. Instead of the phone base station you have a wireless router, also called a wireless access point (WAP). Your computers act like the phone handsets. Data is passed back and forth between the two just as though there was a cable connecting them. Some computers come with wireless capability pre-installed. You can give your computers wireless capability by installing a wireless card or using a USB wireless adaptor.

There are several wireless protocols available. IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g are the most common. A new one that is slowly coming into more widespread use is called Pre-N. All wireless access points (WAPs) have some level of security built into them and there are universal tricks that will work on any router.

The primary difference between wireless protocols is speed. The maximum data transfer rates are:
802.11b - 11Mbps
802.11g - 54Mps
Pre-N - 108Mbps

802.11g routers are backwards compatible with 802.11b devices, but your network will slow down as a result. Pre-N routers are backwards compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g devices and your network may or may not slow down depending upon which brand you use.

I personally use an Apple Airport because I use Macintosh computers. But there are a lot of brands of wireless routers available for both Macintosh and Windows computers. At this point in time, I would recommend going with a Pre-N router since that seems to be where the market is headed. In the past I have always liked Linksys routers, but for a Pre-N router I would probably recommend Belkin or Netgear. They are based on the best chipset. If you are looking for a portable router that you can take with you, I recommend Apple's Airport Express. It is 802.11g, but it is really tiny and offers some cool features such as iTunes integration.

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