Securing Your Wireless Network

As more and more people buy laptops instead of desktop, or smart phones with wifi access we will begin to see a huge in crease in wireless networks being set up. I did a little experiment about a few years ago and set up my laptop to search out and log every wireless signal t saw while I was driving through various neighborhoods (this is called war driving) I expected to see maybe 100 wireless networks and knew about half were going to be insecure. What I found was astonishing. Over 700 wireless networks and less than 1/3 of them were secure. This was in an area of about 5 square miles. Not big at all. It amazed me that I could literally park anywhere and was able to get an internet connection. Because of this, I wrote a small guide on things you should do to secure your wireless network.

Setting Up Your Wireless Network:
Key words have been linked to their definitions so you can get a better understanding of each term.

• The first thing you should do with any device you buy is change the default administrator password. This go for routers as well. Any security you put in place is useless if the person can just connect to your router and change the settings.
  
  
• Change the default SSID to something familiar to you. The SSID is the name of your network, changing from the default helps you recognize your network and ensure you connect to it and not someone else's by mistake.
  
  
• Do not broadcast your SSID. Although it is easy to see networks that don't broadcast the SSID, you can't connect to them unless you know their name. So by not broadcasting it, the SSID can kind of act like a user name, while your encryption will act like a password.
  
  
• Turn on Wireless Encryption. If your router and wireless card support it (any made in the last 2-3 years should) use WPA or WPA2 (both are strong forms of wireless encryption) Older routers and wireless cards may not support those, in which case use WEP. (WEP is better than nothing, but is considered a weak encryption)
  
  
• If you don't expect visitors using your network, use the MAC address filter built into most routers. MAC addresses are unique identifiers on all electronics. By enabling the filter, you can make sure your router only connects to devices you tell it to (you will need to enter the MAC address for each piece of equipment that will be connecting into the filter list)
  
  
• If you live in a small house/apartment, turn down the power of the antennas so your wireless signal only reaches where you need it to. There is no reason to give your neighbors and people passing by free net access.

How to do each of these will vary from router to router, so consult your instruction manual, or give the manufacturer's technical support a call and they will happily assist you.




Microsoft has some tips on increasing performance of your wireless network:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/wirelesstips.mspx

Original post I Worte: (read through the comments, anti-online has a lot of smart people)
http://antionline.com/showthread.php?t=264530

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Got Something to Sell?

In the age of the internet anyone can open their own store. Got an idea for a funny t-shirt? got a great idea for a cool new widget? With a little time, and a little help from some good shopping cart software you can have your own online store up in no time. Ashop Commerce has a really nice e-commerce software available for you to use. From an administration stand point, it is outstanding. It is very user friendly and easy to learn to use well.

From the Administrator Interface You Can:

• Control user access (define who can make the changes in product and pricing)
• Manage the types of payments your store will take (Which credit cards, etc)
• Manage your inventory (Prices, sales, coupons, Brands, product reviews etc)
• Manage your customers
• Manage your marketing strategies
  
• Track sales

And dozens of other tasks that would normally require several pieces of software. You have access to all of these tools in an easy to use web interface.

And the client front end is absolutely wonderful. Clean and easy to use, your customers will be able to easily look for every product you have to offer and then be able to pay and check on the status of their orders from the time they place them to the time their package arrives at their door.

Ashop Commerce has 2 demo sites up that you can take a look at, one is for a toy store the other for a Phone store. 2 very different products that have different requirements, but are set up very well with this software. The demos are each 2 parts, one for the administrative side of the software, the other is the customers side and both demos allow you to take control of the sites to modify the styles and the feel of each as well as to play with fake customer data so you can get a good feel for how powerful these tools are.

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Make Money Blogging

If you are online for any significant amount of time, you have probably seen dozens of "Make a million dollars from home!" type advertisements. You probably also know that they are pretty much a scam. There are ways to make money online, but the real ones will not make you rich over night, heck they probably wont even make you rich at all. But one of the ways to make some extra money is with a company called Smorty.

Smorty is a "Pay Per Post" type service that you can sign up with, and they will give you products to blog about, and then pay you for the post. They can do this because advertisers pay them for the exposure, and they in turn pay you. I think this concept is interesting because not only does it allow bloggers to make some extra cash, but it also feeds them ideas of things to blog about when they are having dry spells, so it really is win-win. The amount you are paid varies based on your blogs ranking (the higher the ranking the better the pay) and can range from $6.00 to $100.00 per post, so if you enjoy writing, and are ready to get paid to blog then follow the link and check Smorty out.

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Dear Viewers:

Please do not believe everything you see on TV. I am a huge fan of shows like CSI and Law and Order, but I pull my hair out when I see them using computers to do EVERYTHING. They make it seem like on a whim a random detective can "hack" a computer, look up every single email ever sent, get the IP address of the sender, then get a map to their house based on the IP address alone, then put a stop on their credit cards, order a pizza to be delivered to the house they are about to raid, and they do it software that has an amazing 3d interface and works in seconds.

Take this image from an episode of CSI: Miami



Lets look at what is wrong with it.

1. It is not a real IP address. I'm sure they do this becasue they don't want people to do something with that info (same reason they use fake phone numbers) but there are IP addresses that are real and can be used like the 169.x.x.x series (which is the default private IP network) or the 192.X.x.x or 10.x.x.x network and of course 127.0.0.1 All are real IP addresses and are no risk to put online.
   
   
2. You cannot take an IP address and translate that into a real address on the fly. You would have to take the IP, give it to the provider who it is assigned to, have them check their logs and see who it was assigned to at the time the incident. To do this, you need a warrant, and it will take days since ISPs work slow.
   

You also have random detective who are now expert hackers. They flip on a computer and "crack" the password on it in seconds with nothing more than the software on the computer. Cracking a password on a computer is not hard, but you do need software to do it. In addition to that, they seem to be able to do it on every computer they encounter. Who cares if computers run different operating systems, everyone knows everything.

In addition to that, the user interfaces on every computer are outstanding. I wish every piece of software I had included a nice 3d interface, and ran as smooth as theirs. No programmer is going to program nice interfaces on utilitarian software built for the government, its un-needed and a waste of system resources. There is no need for a great user interface if you are just typing in an IP address, and why would it just show you the physical address of the home(which isn't possible) instead of say the registered owner of the account? Software is designed first for functionality, then for how it looks. When dealing with people like the government, they don't pay for a great 3D design.

What about "enhancing" pictures. How often do we see them take this ultra grainy video or photo from an ATM machine a block away, then enhance it to be nearly High Definition quality. It just isn't possible. The way cameras work are they take a picture, and what is sees is all the data you have. as you blow that picture up, a computer can try and "enhance" it some by guessing what other data would be there, but you don't go from barely legible to perfect. Maybe from almost legible to barely legible.

They do the same thing with forensics. They make it seem like DNA is the end all and can be found anywhere and prove without a doubt who committed the crime. Not only can it be done, but it is done in seconds. Real labs take WEEKS to get DNA results, it isn't done in 10 seconds.

This stuff, as fun as it is to watch, is an insult to the people who do it for a living. Forensic Technicians work hard, they work long hours and spend years learning to properly gather forensic evidence (either digital or physical) and some random person does it in seconds.

It also spreads false information to viewers. In the picture above, it makes you believe an IP address is like a fingerprint and is rock solid proof a person identity. The truth is, it isn't. IP addresses are used by many people and are cycled through users. Sure they can be traced back to an account at a specific time, but there is still no way to tell who was using the computer. What if the jurors on the Jamie Thomas v. RIAA case thought that IP addresses were solid proof, like DNA. Then they were basing their decision on false facts. I wonder if any of the lawyers asked if any of them watch shows like CSI and know how digital evidence is gathered. Probably not, and becasue of that, the jurors have false knowledge of how things work.

What about if jurors in a murder case hear the defense talking about there being a lack of DNA evidence. What if they think "wow...no DNA must mean he is innocent because DNA is really easy to get. I saw it on CSI last night!"

So please, enjoy the TV shows and movies, but realize a lot of it is fiction. Just like your favorite action hero can't really take 5 shots to the chest, jump off a building and catch a helicopter that is taking off, while throwing a grenade into a window and destroying a building while rescuing a woman who is falling from the upper floors. Its all great to watch, but just isn't true.

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One Laptop Per Child

Many of us take the technology we have available on a daily basis for granted. The ability to access enormous amounts of information in seconds via the internet, the ability to make telephone calls no matter time of day or where you are with your cell phones, and the ability to share photos and send letters in seconds with email. Computers are used every day in schools across the world to allow students to learn about almost anything they want.

With the use of websites like Google, this information really is only a few key strokes away. But not everyone is so lucky. not everyone can buy a laptop or a desktop. not everyone has an internet cafe down the street, and not everyone has a readily available internet connection only minutes away.

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation is working to change this. OLPC's goal is to get this technology in the hands of those who need it but don't have access to it. They have built a user friendly, cheap, and economically friendly laptop for children in the 3rd world. To assist in paying for this project OLPC is running a program where if You buy 1 of their laptops for 400 dollars, they can donate one to a child in a 3rd world. Half of your purchase price is also tax deductible. The reason for this is becasue the laptop costs just short of 200 dollars and you are buying 2 but giving one away. It is for a great cause, so if you are looking for a cheap laptop, or just want to help out a good cause, you should check them out.

If you would rather just give a laptop, you can do that as well and OLPC also takes donations on their website (via Paypal, Google check out, you can donate stocks that you own, or just send in a check.)

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