Need Wireless Security help

[vikingshadow]

Ok, computer masters! Time to help the old man out a bit...

At Thanksgiving, my neice told me that she connected to my wireless at a quickstop not too far from my house. I'm not sure that I believe her, but it has made me a bit nervous. I do have some security, I thought, but now I'd REALLY like more. I have had WEP enabled on my laptop since I got it, but when I try to enable WPA or WPA2, I can't connect to the internet.

Any ideas why I can't use WPA? What can/should I do?

[DFSniper]

hmm. is your laptop set up to automatically connect? if it is, make sure you didnt forget to change the WEP key to the WPA key when you changed your router from WEP to WPA.

[vikingshadow]

You just lost me. Haha! This is all new to me!

It is set up to automatically connect. How do I go about changing my WEP key to the WPA key?

[RSX99]

Vike, what OS are you running? You can google it no problem. I've never connected a laptop wirelessly but other devices such as ethernet converters and game consoles. It's possible that wpa isn't supported within the OS. I'll look into it when I get home.

[DRAGON]

Originally Posted by vikingshadow

You just lost me. Haha! This is all new to me!

It is set up to automatically connect. How do I go about changing my WEP key to the WPA key?

Me tinks he's typing about, you need to make it necessary to key in a password to logon to your account. If you're in the 'remember me' mode, anyone can logon to your account from afar even when you're on the net yourself and you won't even know it -

One day as a friend of mine who works for Turner Broadcasting was helping me with some software downloads. We got on the subject of provider costs. He mentioned that if I had a neighbor with wireless, we could actually share the account and just split the expense. He then opened his laptop and popped up a screen that showed all the locations within a 2 block radius that had broadband. He said as long as the host did not have a password he could logon to their account and use it. Kinda freaky when you think about it. Something you don't need to worry about so much if you have antiquated dial up -

Ya dood, get a password and use it! -

[bigred76]

Vike, go look at your router and tell us what brand it is.

[durrell]

You need to make sure your router has WPA2-PSK enabled. Go into your router's Admin utility and enable it, set the key, the attempt to connect to the router. Windows SHOULD just prompt you for a password.

If we know what brand router you have, we can tell you more specifically what to do and how to do it.

Edit: WEP is pretty much worthless. You definitely need to upgrade.

[bigred76]

Doc, should we have him set up MAC address filtering as well? Just a thought... I use it as I don't quite trust people around me (I live in Silicon Valley where babies learn how to use computers at 3 months ).

[vikingshadow]

So, with WPA2-PSK enabled, no one would be able to connect, even if I were on at the same time, right?

I have a 2Wire DSL Gateway Model 2701HG-B, and am running XP home SP3.

Sheesh, I'm such a noob at this!

[bigred76]

Yes you are, Bryce. I'll get back to you with how to enable it from the router first, then how to connect to it via your laptop. Give me... 20min or so.

EDIT: http://support.2wire.com/index.php?page=view&article=60 There ya go for the router, just set it to WPA-2 PSK on the drop-down where it says "WEP-Open."