I have two brothers that would be very interested in this thread. One of them builds the firewalls and what-not for Wells Fargo. The other is paid to hack networks to find and fix their vulnerabilities.

I run a D-Link in my basement, which helps limit range to the house, along with an incredibly random WEP key. I keep all of my computers up to date with anti-virus, firewall, and anti-spam, etc. Oh yeah, I also live in a small quiet town where the likelihood of a malicious hacker parking in my driveway is very small to begin with. :-)

Oh yeah, if you are broadcasting your SSID, it's useful to name it something that won't point directly to your house/family. I named my wireless network "default" for example.

I'd go with a Linksys or a D-Link, they're proven to be better than a generic brand. I've got a Netgear at home and it's a total PoS and needs reset constantly. Go with the best security you can, but even then it's always hackable. I prefer to have it setup to only allow certain MAC addresses, but then you have to add a new MAC address each time you get a new device or someone else needs access to the network.

This is the one I'm thinking of replacing mine with. Once I finally get it, my Netgear is getting the .223 treament :tongue:

those brothers must make a lot of money. Everyone I talk to says the ITSec guys are filthy rich and barely do any work lol.

I personally have a linksys circa 2001. Still tickin. My next upgrade will be after the N standard has been proven and is better supported.

<Rant>
As far as wifi security, here's my take (FWIW): Most wifi security protocols can be hacked in less than 2 minutes by someone "in the know". (exceptions: the chinese government's proprietary WAPI, closed circuit RF connections, cisco PEAP, and WPA with a 26 alphanumeric password - this last exception is still crackable, but will take more time). All of the others, WEP, WPA, WPA2+TKIP, AES, LEAP, etc are very easy to get through and don't require L33T H4X0r skillz. just someone who's bored and can figure out command lines.

I agree with BrianG's previous comments but with only one addition: If you create an OS yourself, it's much harder to be hacked ;)

For those who are truly paranoid, you can always use a LiveCD specifically to surf the net. It's annoying to boot everytime, but considering the entire OS is loaded and operated from within RAM, there's a very small chance of anything getting to your hard drive (including viruses/spyware/etc).

As for people stealing information, well that's pretty much always going to happen. Either through social avenues, or electrical; there's actually a team that has developed a way to sniff your wired keyboard strokes! (http://www.darknet.org.uk/2008/10/sw...ired-keyboard/)

</rant>

HEY That's the same as mine!
It's a great one :]

You can just put on a passworded WAP password.

That is just crazy. :gasp:

And from up to 65 feet away no less!

linksys, are not good if you torrent or do mass data transferring; i had to reboot mine every couple days to keep everything flowing. my d-link is easy and kicks ass even with the 200gb a month d/l:yipi:

Your specific router may have had a problem, but that's hardly sufficient reason to condemn the whole company. I've had several Linksys routers that worked like a charm with torrents and mass data.

id stay away from the new linksys stuff, they have been putting out nothing but crap. they have became really cheap if you ask me. im using a netgear and love it never had a problem at all.

I am with BrianG. I like the GUI on the Linksys. That said I had 1 fail in summer as it overheated. But it configures for port forwarding etc so well I bought another one.

Now that all my system have 1 gig network ability I added a wired 1gig router. so that only my laptop goes through the linksys. It runs flawless for me.

Highflier