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Old 21st January 2005 | 19:58
  #13 (permalink)  
Toxteth O'Grady
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Joined: Aug 2003
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From: USA
Agree the above but I think we need to keep this in perspective. We're not talking protection of large corporate enterprises or national security data here. Any IT admin who came to this forum for security advice ought to be sacked.

But since the majority of people on here are home users, the threat of advanced cryptanalysis attack is remote.

Realistically the security threat ranges from not having your neighbour get free internet access through your wireless network, to at worst the possibility of a mischievous wardriver parking outside your house.

In this context I stand by my earlier assertion that with a non-standard SSID, SSID broadcast disabled. MAC filtering and WPA-PSK with a randomly generated hex passkey, you will have the best protection you can get at no cost and it is appropriate for the threat.

The key, if you'll excuse the pun, to overcoming the PSK weakness of the passkey is to use a random key generator. These are freely available on the internet. Although in general it is bad practice to write down passwords, this is not an issue for home users. If somebody breaks into your house, they're far more likely to nick your pc, along with the rest of your crown jewels, than spend time faffing around trying to crack your network password.

So the message has to be, yes there are vulnerabilites that IT administrators must be aware of, but as a home user there's a few relatively simple and basic measures you can take to protect your system, which is what the OP was asking.
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