Wireless hook up to network

[brocher]

I have been thinking about internet use at work. Is there a device that i can connect to a network socket at work that would allow me to connect to the device wirelessly using my laptop to access the net. Some of the sockets are to far out of reach for easy access or its get a long cable. I can connect to the network for internet access using a cable and was wondering if this would be possible. Obviously i would have to connect it to my laptop first to configure it with a WEP security number.

 

[Brad]

First of all, use WPA, not WEP. Especially at work. WEP is very "hack-able". I did it in a controlled environment at work and it took about 10 minutes.

Secondly, contact your IT department if this is something that you can do. Many companies would have a policy against this.

Thirdly, if you get a regular linksys wireless router (such as the WRT-54G), it should work for your needs.

 

[LeeJend]

You make it sound like you connect at many different locations. If that is the case you need to look at whether a home wireless router signal will reach all the locations you need to reach, whether there is any euqipment at work it might interfere with, etc.

If there are only a few locations it's easier just to make a few extension cables and leave them plugged in, it's what I do.

PS What Brad said about the IT department if there is one. They get nasty about self help projects.

 

[gh057]

lol! this would be one hell of a story if this guy actually goes through with installing WiFi in his ooffice. if your going to install wireless and need to use it in multiple locations you can connect each router to one to make an extention of the main router . ie ( you have DSL/Calbe/Etc and you have a linksys wrt54g router connected to your DSL/Cable modem and then you would configure the router to use the other routers connected to the linksys as a AP ( access point) refer to your routers manual for it :lick: btw do use WPA as Brad suggested its not funny when some is dling and using your bandwith >.< pisses me off .

 

[Brad]

lol! this would be one hell of a story if this guy actually goes through with installing WiFi in his ooffice. if your going to install wireless and need to use it in multiple locations you can connect each router to one to make an extention of the main router . ie ( you have DSL/Calbe/Etc and you have a linksys wrt54g router connected to your DSL/Cable modem and then you would configure the router to use the other routers connected to the linksys as a AP ( access point) refer to your routers manual for it :lick: btw do use WPA as Brad suggested its not funny when some is dling and using your bandwith >.< pisses me off .

I'm not so worried about people stealing his bandwidth, I am worried about people sniffing his corporate network traffic.

 

[fitz]

you could also look at setting up an entire seperate wireless network. Then setup a border VPN for the wireless clients to access the corporate network. It's more secure than WPA since you would need the VPN client on each wireless network to connect to the corporate network and the traffic to the corporate network is secured over IPSec VPN.

It's an extra step in the process of connecting.. you get a connection to the wireless signal as the first step, but then need to create the VPN tunnel into the corporate network.

 

[Brad]

WPA with AES is more than enough. With todays computing power, AES would take 149 trillion years to decrypt (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/aesq&a.htm). It is enough to have some sort of Authentication (such as a RADIUS server).

 

[Stevai]

First of all, use WPA, not WEP. Especially at work. WEP is very "hack-able". I did it in a controlled environment at work and it took about 10 minutes.

Secondly, contact your IT department if this is something that you can do. Many companies would have a policy against this.

Thirdly, if you get a regular linksys wireless router (such as the WRT-54G), it should work for your needs.

Brad,
Would you suggest WPA over WEP? I mean, WPA1 (not WPA2). Only because my Xbox360 wireless NIC doesn't support WEP (says it does tho, lies...). Also, I setup my wireless router to put the wireless connections in a VPN, should be good?

Sorry for debunking the thread =/

 

[Brad]

I would recommend using WPA1 and I will tell you why.

WEP and WPA1 do use the same cipher (RC4) to encrypt the data. However, the thing that makes WEP so vulnerable is that it broadcasts the first 40 characters of the key in plain text, making that very vulnerable to hacking.

A hacker, coupled with traffic that it has already captured from your PC that is encrypted, can utilize a brute force attack (essentially guessing and checking). If you are using a 64-bit key, that is only 24 bits that have to be guessed.

WPA1 does not broadcast that portion in plain text, making it a lot more secure.

 

[gh057]

I'm not so worried about people stealing his bandwidth, I am worried about people sniffing his corporate network traffic.

true sniffing corporate traffic would be a lot worse than stealing bandwith, oh n03s my social could be on that corporate ^_^

 

[brocher]

Firstly, i work offshore in UK, the nearest rig to us is over 3 miles away and it is connected to the same server through fibre optics, so hacking is not a problem unless they have a helluva signal. Secondly i work on 5 different rigs within a 6 mile radius of each other , my office is slightly different in that the network sockets are in different places on the walls.Is there not a unit that is available that i could plug in to the socket in the wall and then connect wirelessly with laptop.