That's darn good. Turning off SSID Broadcasting is big and MAC address filtering puts you above and beyond. No would be hacker is going to bother you.

 

Yea turn it off.

There is no such thing as a 100% secured network. If you can connect so can someone else. There are ways to get the SSID, your MAC address, fake it, crack the key and be on your network.

You've done more than most so you are fine but never think you are 100% secure.

 

I don't know, you are paying for a certain amount of bandwith. If you can't use it all why not let someone else use it. As long as the don't mess with your machines or start sucking up all the bandwith with torrents or setup a server. Let' em check their e mail. Someday you may be ineed of a quick connection, live and let live! But screwing with others networks and machines is totally wrong and the perps should be shot!!

 

this would concern me as much as the ethical side of it ..

a funny story ..

When I was living in Maryland, I had small business access at the house , and actually ran a free hot spot for the neighborhood .. I labeled the network as FREE HOT SPOT .. so people would know they were welcome to use it ..

when our house went up for sale, about a dozen of my neighbors came by and each one asked "what are we going to do for internet access now?"

pretty funny ..

 

Soooooo... when your not using your truck, can I use it? How 'bout when you leave your house on vacation... your not using it so by your logic I should be able to use it for a little vacation!

 

PARTY AT MINERS!!!!

 

I leave mine open, good luck using it, I go down stairs with a laptop and the signal drops to 20% and takes about 20 mins to get online

 

Good grief, that's nothing a moderate gain antenna can't overcome. With my antenna I can pickup every WLAN in a one block radius of my house... when I'm inside.

Just because your crappy built-in laptop antenna has trouble doesn't mean the signal isn't leaking out into the street, your neighbors, etc...

There is simply no excuse for not securing your wireless network appropriately.

 

Yeah, the signal on her laptop shows one bar and keeps coming and going. Not strong at all. This type of service is intriguing, I may have to look into my own, secured of course, or at least so-called secure.

 

Go wired, its faster speed capable, more reliable, more secure, and then just turn wireless off all together, or buy a router without wireless capabilities

 

I dont want to start an argument, or make a big deal of this, but in regards to broadcasting your SSID, it doesn't really matter.

Assuming your encryption method is crackable, and the hacker does not have your password from other means (broke into your house and read the sticky note on the corner of your monitor).

The way that the hacker breaks your WEP key, is by intercepting packets, as they travel through the air.

Included in the information the hacker gets with the WEP key, is the SSID. It does not take anymore effort to get the SSID, than the WEP key-it's included in the packet.

When you dont broadcast the SSID, the network is still shown, it just says <SSID not broadcast>.

It does not hurt to not broadcast SSID, but does not help either.

 

I just set up wireless at my house last week and was surprised to find as many as six networks in addition to mine. All but one were "secured." It surprises me because hicks to the South of us that I wouldn't believe if they had internet. Retirement community to the East of us with only two houses within what I would believe to be in-range of a wireless router. Young guy to the North who probably has one of the secure networks. And another young couple to the West who have internet, but may or may not be wireless.

I don't have a clue where these other 3 or 4 signals are coming from, granted only 2/6 had a strong signal. Nonetheless, I'm still learning about locking down my network the best I can. So far only have the WPA, and will be looking into the MAC filtering and SSID broadcast this weekend.

I will admit I piggybacked on that unsecure signal while I was trying to figure out why MY wireless wasn't working, but I'm off of it now of course