At my wit's end "windows was unable to connect"

[anta]

Lol....the odd thing is that when she came home from college two weeks ago, she picked up the network immediately. I'm assuming that her AV software hasn't changed since she got home. I'm assuming if I uninstall the offending AV I'm going to have to leave it off and install an alternative? It's her computer so I hate to start uninstalling programs.

I can go into her software and make it allow programs access, if I knew what to allow so that it would connect with WPA2 but I don't.

How much of a security issue would leaving it at WPA be?

hey lorraine

have you tried updating the drivers for your Wifi cards that are misbehaving? or have they been updated by Windows update (you can rollback misbehaving new drivers) ?

as already stated earlier in the thread the WPA / WPA 2 thing shouldn't cause you too many problems as freeloaders tend just to look for the easiest route onto a network.

think of it like a burglar casing your street, first he'll look for the real easy ways to get into your property, you may have left a window open (no encryption/password), then maybe if he's no joy therem he may need to be a little more advanced up the criminal ladder and know what he is doing he may spot a window without locks which he could jemmy open without much effort (WEP encrypted) now if he's really convinced you've got something worth stealing and knows what he's doing he'll try (and fail when) disabling your magnetic window alarm sensors (WPA encryption) with some foil chewing gum wrapper or he'll spot the mission impossible lasers (WPA2) and just go home...

I think you'll be safe though.

Oh, and just my very humble opinion, I wouldn't uninstall your AV. coming back to the analogy, that's like getting rid of a fire alarm when you've got problems with your locks....

 

[paulmc2011]

wireless access safety

Don't know if it was mentioned before but you can limit access to your router by mac address. I don't know if hackers can fake their mac address. I guess they can. To continue the burgular analogy it would mean he has to also wear a disguise.

 

[Tepid]

Mac Address filtering is one of the strongest ways to protect against unauthorized access.
Yes, MAC addresses can be spoofed, but it is extremely difficult to mimic an existing MAC Address that you can not find unless you have direct access to the system.

One way is for you to build a new system and throw the boxes and information out to the trash,
A trash digger might be able to get the MAC address from that info.

However, someone who knows what they are doing, really knows, and filters traffic packets and has a way to decipher them, may also get the info that way.

Bottom line, if you are a target, and someone wants in, only protection is to unplug from the grid.