Most people are using wireless in their home to connect to the internet for either the phone, computer, laptop or some sort of set top box. And although wireless is probably the better option, rather than having to run computer cables through all your walls, it does have some security issues.

Fortunately most of these issues can easily be avoided or taken care of with a few little tweaks and a little know how.

Give your Wifi a strange name

Because anyone within 100 metres can see your wireless connection (not access) having your wifi name something that makes you identifiable can be a security risk.

A lot of people will name their wireless connection their family name or street address, basically broadcasting to the neighbourhood whose wifi it is and where they are.

Also a lot of wifi routes come with a default name like the model of the router which further more opens it up to be identified.

It is always good to give your wireless SSID name some unidentifiable. It doesn’t look as cool but something like “ABC123” is a lot better than “Peterson Family”.

Use WPA2 Encryption

So your wifi connection is out there for the whole neighbour hood to see. What makes your connection unusable to other people is a password for your encryption which basically scrambles up your internet connection so anyone else without the password wont be able to use it.

Early Wifi Access Points used WEP and then WPA encryption standards which is built into most wifi routers.

The standard now is called WPA2 and can usually be enabled by simply selecting it in your router.

If your wifi router doesn’t come with WPA2 you might be able to update it for free on the manufactured website. If not it is advisable to buy a router with WPA2 included other wise someone else can very easily be using your connection.

Its one thing for people to use all your data on your internet. But what if they are doing illegal things as well? Whose name is the internet account in and who is liable?

War Drivers in Townsville

War drivers are people who drive around the neighbourhoods looking for unsecured wifi internet connections to use.

Yes, they exists and yes I have met them.

A lot of people use the internet for all different reasons. Some of them who are doing things and don’t want to be caught will not use their own internet connection and would rather use yours.

Not having your internet connection secured might put you on a list of free internet for people to use around Townsville and you might see someone sitting in their car outside your house at night.

If they do something bad and the internet account is identified, the authorities will come knocking on your door, not theirs. After all the account is in your name!

Wifi and Speed

For the average user in an average sized house using wifi will not slow your internet connection.

For computer gamers a lot of people will rather a cabled connection because of latency, but that wont effect the average user using the internet to surf, download, email and watch movies.

Where wifi can be affected is when there are too many walls between your computer and wifi box and the distance from you to the router.

I have been able to get a internet connection over wifi at 8o metres before but somewhere around 90 feet seems to be the real good sweet spot.