Wireless Modem/Router

[London Geezer]

Hello y'all,

Mr London 2004 needs a Modem possibly with Wireless Router included, or whatever they make them these days... Cheapo thing, not too fancy...

Oh, and i need to know something about the protocols, i've been looking around and they all seem to be maximum 54Mb?? Haven't followed for a while, is that the best i can find?

Thanks everyone!

 

[Simon F]

If it's any help, I bought a sparkcom non-wireless broadband modem/router from here for under £40. (It's the 3rd one down on that page (and the picture is wrong)). It's cheap and cheerful but seems to work pretty well.

I believe that there will be a new standard for wireless coming out that fixes a lot of the security holes.... I think I'd at least wait for that before going wireless.

 

[London Geezer]

If it's any help, I bought a sparkcom non-wireless broadband modem/router from here for under £40. (It's the 3rd one down on that page (and the picture is wrong)). It's cheap and cheerful but seems to work pretty well.

I believe that there will be a new standard for wireless coming out that fixes a lot of the security holes.... I think I'd at least wait for that before going wireless.

( i found some for about 70 quid, and waiting is sadly not an option at the moment since i REALLY need broadband at home, and it has to be wireless (U know these poofs, we need things to look good round the place!!)

 

[hey69]

el cheapo you can find from for example +-80 - 100 euro
yes 54mbit is the max in standart , there are 100mbit transmitters but since they aren't in a standart nowadays, you can't really use it

btw remember, wifi uses a lot of overheat so don't expect to transfer files from pc a to b at 54 mb/sec. take 40% of that for sustained troughput

if you are just connecting 1 pc to it, even a 11mb/sec accespoint /or adsl router will suffice since broadband adsl is mostely 1-5 mbit anyway

on PC side, you can buy USB WIFI adaptor, are really cheap( 30euroish) pci wifi cards cost a bit more, arouind 50euro
if you have a laptop expect to pay 35-45euro for a wifi card

 

[London Geezer]

Been shopping around all day today, this thread is now useless

 

[hey69]

damn you 8)

 

[London Geezer]

But hey, Digi an I can still rip the thread to shreds!! that's what we're here for!!!

 

[Guden Oden]

DLink has wireless stuff that supposedly runs at 100+ Mbit, but its efficiency is reportedly even less than usual with wireless. I don't really consider wireless viable at the moment, not with the security concerns that exist, problems with interference and generally bad throughput also.

 

[Sage]

firstly I would NOT go wireless. The absolute best currently available wireless security can be sliced through in 50 seconds.

Secondly.... when looking for a modem you need to specify what KIND of modem

 

[Simon F]

firstly I would NOT go wireless. The absolute best currently available wireless security can be sliced through in 50 seconds.

Come to think of it, with LB being in London, there are probably 3 or 4 open wireless networks in his area already... why bother with the modem?

 

[London Geezer]

HEY!!! SP2 has been designed to solve all our issues with security for ever and ever!!!!

 

[Jabbah]

firstly I would NOT go wireless. The absolute best currently available wireless security can be sliced through in 50 seconds.

Secondly.... when looking for a modem you need to specify what KIND of modem

Thats once youve got all the data, now that can be a bitch. For 64bit your looking at several hundred MB up to around 4GB, for 128bit your looking at up to 24GB. Now I dont know about you but I'm not going to hang around someones slow home dsl connection waiting for them to use that much just so i can use their connection from my car

Add to that the fact the signal drops off rapidly affecting the amount of useful data you can get etc and it quickly becomes a less serious threat.

That only applies to WEP encryption anyway. WPA is another kettle of fish and uses public/private key encrytion IIRC. There are no hacks available for that atm.

Older firmware sometimes have problems with how they generate keys for WEP and use weak Init Vectors making it easier to crack with less data.

I think unless youve got a really bored neighbour then WEP is good enough for a home network if wires are bad for them.

Just got a 3com modem/router/firewall/wireless etc doddle to set up and came with a usb 11g adapter. Needed the wireless coz the misses was getting rather stroppy about the wires trailing round the house

 

[hey69]

I think unless youve got a really bored neighbour then WEP is good enough for a home network if wires are bad for them.

exactly

or better, you can try to steal his broadband connection 8)

 

[London Geezer]

Well i'm getting a 4Mb broadband connection, so i'm not sure i'll even notice someone jacking into and steal my bandwidth!!!

What good programs/firewalls can i get to make sure that no one "accidentally" jacks into my network? For "good" i mean FREE.

 

[Simon F]

Well i'm getting a 4Mb broadband connection, so i'm not sure i'll even notice someone jacking into and steal my bandwidth!!!

What good programs/firewalls can i get to make sure that no one "accidentally" jacks into my network? For "good" i mean FREE.

If you're using wireless then you want to turn on the encryption with the maximum length encryption key and change it regularly.

 

[London Geezer]

Well i'm getting a 4Mb broadband connection, so i'm not sure i'll even notice someone jacking into and steal my bandwidth!!!

What good programs/firewalls can i get to make sure that no one "accidentally" jacks into my network? For "good" i mean FREE.

If you're using wireless then you want to turn on the encryption with the maximum length encryption key and change it regularly.

That's all? I'm sure i'd find how to do that, but a hint would make things quicker

 

[Simon F]

That's all? I'm sure i'd find how to do that, but a hint would make things quicker

I haven't got wireless, but it'd be in the setup of the wireless router AND for each of the PCs connecting to it (somewhere in the network settings).

If you change it regularly, then even if someone was trying to break in and was spending the effort to collect packets, then once the change happened, they'd have to start all over again from scratch.

 

[Sage]

firstly I would NOT go wireless. The absolute best currently available wireless security can be sliced through in 50 seconds.

Secondly.... when looking for a modem you need to specify what KIND of modem

Thats once youve got all the data, now that can be a bitch. For 64bit your looking at several hundred MB up to around 4GB, for 128bit your looking at up to 24GB. Now I dont know about you but I'm not going to hang around someones slow home dsl connection waiting for them to use that much just so i can use their connection from my car

can be done with about 5MB, and you can force the WAP to talk to you... can get the 5MB in a few seconds. It could be 2048-bit encryption but as long as it's using WEP all you have to crack is about 24-bits of that. A handheld computer can do it.

the methods for cracking WPA are very closely-guarded secrets. I don't know how to do it, but I know a security consultant who demonstarted it for me by breaking into mine once... looking back on it, it must have been funny to see me fuming. That was the end of our WAP being plugged into the "trusted" port on our Watchguard firewall!!!