"Andrew Webber" <awebber@wwwebbers.com> wrote:
>On security for the ThinkPad, I was going to enable wireless
>security on the base station, but some online reading made me think
>it was more (totally?) secure to use MAC filtering and only allow
>the two existing cards access. Am I right in thinking this really
>does eliminate the need for WEP in this case? (And when would you
>use WEP?)
NO. ALWAYS use WEP. Even if you use MAC filtering (I do) you still
need WEP because without it any yahoo with software can still sniff
the packets. Not that WEP totally protects against this, but it's the
difference between locking your front door and leaving it wide
open. With WEP on, any potential eavesdropper would need to be
a lot smarter, and there's a kind of psychological barrier: someone who
would look at unencrypted packets might think twice before they broke
encryption to do it. Most people would never think about surveiling
wireless packets if not presented with the opportunity. WEP removes
the opportunity. The needed knowledge alone would decrease your
possible invaders by probably 95% or more.
>I also have a problem upgrading the base station's firmware, I've
>downloaded the file from MS's site but when I attempt to update the
>firmware, I get "Installation was unsuccessful. Make sure you have
>the correct file, and then try again." Looked at the MS
>troubleshooting site but all it suggests is to download again. So
>I'm stuck at firmware v1.00.072 (July 30/02). No apparent problems
>but I know this version is way out of date.
And this being a Microsoft branded product, you're surprised?
_______________________________________________
Thinkpad mailing list
Thinkpad@stderr.org
http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
Received on Tue Apr 1 21:41:17 2003
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri May 26 2006 - 16:00:37 EDT