Wireless network setup?

[352Fella]

Hey, guys. I have a question about a wireless network setup/security. Here is the situation. I recently visited a friend whose roommate had setup wifi throughout the apartment, with a Linksys wireless router via the cable modem. There are no computers hooked up to the cable modem or router. Both items are just connected to the tv. A couple days ago, someone reset the router, and now the wifi is unsecured. My question is in order to secure the wifi network, do I need to have a hard connection with the router? Or can I secure it wirelessly, with a laptop?

Thanks.

[agigator]

I'm pretty sure you can do it over the wireless but it's recommended that you do it with a wire because the wireless connection is more susceptible to interference. Also, it seems a little bit risky to initialize your security over an insecure connection.

[Ericgraves]

You can do it over a wireless channel. Really doesn't matter. If someone has the hardware and technology to intercept your wireless packet they have the technology to hack WEP/WPA1 and they can perform other malicious actions on WPA2.

So if someone is going to do something bad, they are going to do it regardless. In some sense the idea of using 100 some odd bits to protect 10k is laughable.

As far as interference, modern wireless routers have turbo codes built into a protocol. It is quite clear when turbo codes fail, so its not like there is a possibility of it getting the wrong message. If it doesn't receive the message right it will just ack.

In the future we will hopefully start using codes and practices which satisfy shannon secrecy conditions such as One time pads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad) but until then it is in a practical sense safer to use a wired connection but asymptotically with number of transmissions both methods are equivalent.

In most environments the most applicable hack is someone trying to log into your network.

[352Fella]

Thanks, guys. Appreciate the responses & education!

[michaelc]

try typing "www.192.168.0.1" without the www or look up: router ip address/setup/access address for your router model

edit: "ip" address

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Should actually be:

192.168.1.1

[michaelc]

Should actually be:

192.168.1.1

thanks, i will never be able to remember that

[rburnett]

Depends on if your router has wireless admin login enabled... but it isn't by default.

Plug into any of the 4 ports on the back not labeled WAN and type 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 in your browser -as mentioned above... go to linksys website and type in your model # and you'll get step by step instructions for setting up wireless encryption

[rburnett]

I think Dlink uses 1.1 and lynksys use 0.1

[HALLGATOR]

Some routers use 192.168.2.1

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Yeah, but he said it was a Linksys router. :wink:

[HALLGATOR]

Yeah, but he said it was a Linksys router. :wink:

I understood that. Hence the "some" in my post as people who don't have Linksys may be reading this thread.