Wi-Fi

Stapleton-Price Ltd

Wi-Fi !!??

We have been asked to explain a little about Wi-Fi, so here goes.............

Wi-Fi? Yes, that is what I said, not Hi-Fi, Wi-Fi.

It is a natty collection of bits of equipment, put together in your home or office, so that you can share your internet connection, files and information on your computer with the rest of the family or work colleagues, anywhere around the house or office in fact, yes, even that loft office.

No wiring, no high tech gobeldy gook, just simply plug it in, load the drivers and away you all go, surfing and exchanging files to your hearts content!

There is a problem though. Several in fact, with the onset of fast Broadband internet connections, the thought of sharing your precious bandwidth with the rest of the family doesn’t really worry you anymore. But the thought of all that wiring around the house, your partners PC in the next room, then one or two PC's up in the bedrooms for them, it's a lot of wiring !!!

With Wi-Fi however, there is no physical wire networking to be done, so it is easy, you go down to your local PC Superstore, buy the products at Superstore inflated prices, (that’s another article, sorry), go home, plug them in, and you’re away!

Oh how wrong you could be. There are viruses, worms and Trojans out there on the internet that could bring down your PC quicker than a Superstore phone technician on a £1.00p a minute call!

But you have fitted a virus checker so you’re OK, right? Wrong, research shows that a staggering 45% of home users never update it!

You have fitted a Personal Firewall, right? Wrong again, research shows an enormous 65% of home users don’t update it or configure it correctly!

Perhaps your part of the 35% of users who update it every day, so you’re secure, right? I really don’t want to crush you, but wrong again.

Remember that nice salesperson in the Superstore who sold you your Wi-Fi router and told you just plug it in and go? Remember he said that you wouldn’t need to put wires all around the house; you could just plug it in and go? Well he was right, if you want to share your information with everyone in range. Even if you did have a big house, and you were further than 200-300 yards away from your nearest road or neighbour, did you know that just slipping one of those high tech crisp cans over the top of the receiving aerial can triple its receiving area? Some guys have even managed a range of 5 miles, just with a coat hanger as a receiving aerial !!!

That means you’re now talking about only being secure, providing your PC is up to date virus protected, up to date Firewall protected and more than a couple of miles away from the nearest neighbour or road, unlikely isn’t it?

Whilst the salesman tries to sell you the most costly for his own reasons, there are other reasons you should be looking at the more expensive end of the market.

The cheaper ones in the store are the basic Wi-Fi setup, and the more you pay, the more distance you buy, along with security, in the form of encryption. There is a balance here that needs thinking about more than the average Superstore salesman does. Distance over security divided by encryption or something like that, I was never a mathematician but you get the idea.

Help is at hand though, most leading manufacturers now include NAT within their own wireless routers, that should at least begin to hide your PC's from the outside world, some even include their own firewalls with rules etc. Thankfully this is becoming more common, however, whenever you think wireless, think security too. Make sure you read the instructions and make sure you enable some sort of internal encryption, WEP, WAP there are several, each has their own merits, however, none are foolproof.

So just before you take the plunge and dive into the world of Wi-Fi, think carefully about who you want to share you files with. Data theft is increasing by over 1000% per year, yes, that is not a misprint, a thousand percent a year! Perhaps there is a lot to be said for good old wire after all!

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Last modified:January, 2006