[captaincleanoff]

I am just wondering if there is any possible way a wireless intruder could be tracked. I mean, if someone was to log into my wireless network, is there any possible way it could be tracked. I am just wondering this as it seems as though it would be the perfect way for hackers to go untraced. Just interested

[PDLM]

If your wireless access point has logging enabled then yes of course. And for security you can always put a MAC-address white list and/or WEP encryption on your access point.

[trpfeifer]

It would be a better idea to prevent them from accessing your network in the first place.

1. Turn off SSID broadcase
2. Turn on WEP or WPA encryption with as much encryption as your router supports (e.g. 128bit minimum)
3. If available, add your PC's to the MAC list and turn on MAC filtering
4. Change your SSID to something other then the default for your device

[freeier]

it's more fun to track and and see what kind of stuffs your intruder are doing obviously... 8-P

[discobay]

Running WEP or WPA has a performance impact. MAC filtering is recommended.

[TaLL|dUdE]

wpa is a better encryption method than wep, which is easily crackable by someone in the know. everything else mentioned is a good idea.

although i've never noticed encyrption having a major performance impact, minor most likely. but not major.

better be safe than sorry,

user a personal firewall too, there are a few good one's that are free.

you don't wanna be surfing away when someone could be seeing what you're doing or logging your keystrokes when you're accessing your bank accounts.

[discobay]

Too true dude.

[atique]

Originally Posted by discobay

Running WEP or WPA has a performance impact. MAC filtering is recommended.

Say you have MAC filtering on so the intruders can not connect to your router and us eyour bandwidth but if WPA/WEP is turned off can someone still sinff your network packets coming from your laptop and use it? The connection is not WPA protected so intruder will not have any problem to see what is being sent over network?

MAC Filtering = WPA/WEP

Right or wrong?

[TaLL|dUdE]

MAC Filtering is done by putting your machines (or actually you're wifi cards MAC Address).

You can check it via command prompt (for wintel machines) with the commnad "ipconfig /all" w/o quotes.

look for Ethernet Adapter Wireless Network connection then look for PHYSICAL Address. That is your wifi cards MAC Address. This is a like a unique serial number for your card (although once in a while there are times where you can have the same MAC address as someone else - running out of room i guess, either that or just being lazy to make new one's).

*** or someone can spoof your MAC address if they know what it is as well ***

for Linux / Mac machines go to your terminal and type in "ifconfig" and look for the same thing.

WPA/WEP is an encryption method. it encrypts the data being sent over the air so that no one (you hope) would be able to sniff the packets and see the data going through the air. as i've mentioned above, wep has already been compromised. WPA is so far safe. For the time being anyway.

[captaincleanoff]

but how can someone be tracked? with a million people all in the same suburb, most with computers, how could you find out exactly who is downloading illegally from your connection?