Re: Linksys WRK54G FINALLY working EXCEPT for work laptop Help!
Source: http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.internet.wireless/200608/msg00483.html
From: Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:16:"Dana" <danabillotte@xxxxxxxxxxx> hath wroth:
You were absolutely right! I had taken a friend's advice and done the MAC addressing for our home computers without ever really knowing WHAT I was changing. (A case of knowing just enough to be dangerous.)
Welcome to "Learn By Destroying(tm)".
Now that I look at it more closely, I can see that I had given my network a specific list of who could "come in", so I shouldn't be surprised when a guest computer isn't allowed to enter.
I also realize that my wireless network is also more secure than I thought. At least my neighbors can't get into my network as easily as I can to theirs.
Not so. MAC addresses are easily spoofed. If your neighbor wanted to attack your system, they have only to sniff the traffic for authorized MAC addresses, and spoof one of them when that machine is not active. http://www.klcconsulting.net/Change_MAC_w2k.htm http://whoozoo.co.uk/macspooflinux.htm Lots of others.
So do you think the MAC addressing and static IP's are a normal fix for some routers? It's not hurting anything, right? And if it keeps the network stable.
Re: Linksys WRK54G FINALLY working EXCEPT for work laptop Help! I'm not sure what you mean by "stable", but DHCP versus static IP's has NOTHING to do with stability. With DHCP, the router will continue to assign the same IP address to a given MAC address. It will not change until perhaps the DHCP lease expires. Some routers have a "static DHCP" or "reserved DHCP" feature, that allows you to permanently assign an IP address to a specific MAC address, effectively creating a static IP address. In other words, there's not "stability" advantage to static IP's. What I think your friend is suggesting that by turning off DHCP, security is enchanced because it is more difficult for an attacker to find a suitable IP addresses. That's rediculous because once an attacker discovers your IP address range, they can just manually assign a suitable IP address. More easily, they just clone both the MAC address and IP address of one of your existing computers. My guess is that your friend also assigned a weird IP address block and random IP address for the router inside the block. The obstacle course theory of security does have its proponents, but I'm not one of them. I prefer to trust in WPA encryption to keep the hackers out, and not have normal users deal with the obstacles. See the security section of the FAQ: http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/WiFi#WiFi_Security for clues.
Thank you for responding, and saving me much frustration.
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 8313362558.