Picklewagon

I have been wanting to secure my WiFi network for some time now. I figured now was as good of a time as any since my family is out of town visiting family. Warning: this may be boring to some of you. But please read it still. Perhaps you will still learn something.
Both my DSL router and Netgear router were sort of sharing the responsibilities of the network. One was acting as the DHCP server, the other was converting the network to WiFi. Don’t ask me which one was acting as the firewall. Obviously, I was not happy with this configuration.

After doing some research, I decided to make the DSL router act as a transparent bridge. This would allow me to use the DSL router solely as a DSL modem and plug it directly into the router.

So now I have my Netgear router doing everything that a router should be doing-WiFi, security, etc. I feel much better about it now. I also added WEP encryption. I was using no encryption before.

I chose WEP over the more secure WPA simply because I need WEP to use the WiFi connection with my Nintendo DS. Someday I would like to use both.

I also went over to grc.com to run the Shields Up! test. It’s a test to verify that you are safe. by checking to make sure all ports are closed, etc. I passed the test with flying colors. Everybody should make sure their network is secure by running the utility.

This has been on my list for a long time. It’s good to be secure.