On Dec 30, 2003, at 11:52 PM, Craig White wrote:

> Keep the computer,
> dump the babe.

You're giving this advice to a geek? You can *always* get another 
computer. Keep the GF!

Now on a bit more serious note, my wife wanted to be able to walk 
around with her iBook so I got a Netgear wireless router. It only cost 
me $14 after rebates. I plugged it in and it worked with both Linux and 
OSX. The thing is, the default configuration is wide open on the 
wireless side and the signal seems really strong. I'll bet my neighbors 
could be sharing my network right now if they had the right cards.

The router came with a manual that is pretty good on how to configure 
various security measures from simply hiding the wireless network name 
through telling the router to only respond to a list of known MAC 
addresses up to various levels of WEP encryption. It also points out 
that higher levels of security cost something in terms of stealing 
cycles from the iBook.

Where the manual isn't much help is in laying out some kind of decision 
matrix that would allow me to choose the appropriate level of security. 
I don't care if someone wants to park in front of my house and share my 
connection to the internet. I don't worry to much about them printing 
from my printer. I do care if they get into the shares on my desktop 
but I don't think the notion that some black hat is going to park 
outside house a capture every byte and then analyze them to discover 
our usernames and passwords. As another example, it is easy to set the 
MAC address of the iBook as the only one allowed on the network. 
Presumably, it is also very easy to forge MAC addresses. Then manual 
doesn't actually say that. One has to infer it from the fact that it 
goes on to discuss more expensive and presumably better security 
methods.