Wireless Router Help

[trekkie00]

I was going to buy a wireless router so I could play my DS online when the games come out. I was looking at the Belkin F5D7230-4. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=2470291

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience with Belkin or this router. Also, if you could suggest a better (or less expensive) router, it would be gladly appreciated as long as it is on this list: http://nintendowifi.com/customersupp...rtedRouters.do

Also, my parents are worried about the security issues of having a wireless router with 400-foot range hooked up with their computer. One person near us has a job as a hacker (legal, of course), and another has already stolen one checking account. How easy would it be to hack into a computer through a router like this?

Finally, my parents are also worried that this may mess up their computer. Would it be possible to attach the ethernet cable from the one router into this one, and attach another from the out of this router into my computer? Our wired router has a firewall installed, would this affect the transmissions?

Thanks for your help.

 

[tractorboy]

I like Netgear products, Belkin is not too bad either. Try newegg.com

 

[MikeyE]

Do a little reading on wireless security. Use WEP encrypction and MAC filtering and you'll be pretty safe. Though not impossible it would take a skilled and determined hacker to penetrate that. Definitely use some security though!

Not sure about your mulitple router question. You could just take out the wired router, plug your parents comp directly into your wireless router if it makes them feel better then hook up your computer wirelessly. There's really no need for 2 routers.

 

[Law]

If you already have an existing network, just buy an access point (BUT I RECOMMEND BUYING A WIRELESS ROUTER BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAPER THAN ACCESS POINTS.) One of the most important security feature is to disable SSID broadcast and change it to something different than the default! This ensure that it does not present itself to other people and only you know about it. Combine this with encryption like WEP and WPA (buy a router or AP that support WPA) and MAC control list makes your wireless tougher to hack. I'm not saying its hack proof, but nothing these days are.

About the two router thing, you could use the wireless router to just act as a switch providing more ports to connect other PC to and use it as an access point. You must disable DHCP on the second router, change the LAN IP of the second router so that it goes with the address of your network. For example if your first router IP address is 192.168.1.1 then change the second router IP address to 192.168.1.254.

 

[tractorboy]

I use to recommend all the SSID and channel...do not bother with it or mac filtering. I can not find it right now, It was on another forum like this that a tech posted a link. Seems like a lot of products like netstumbler has a discovery feature and hidding / changing the ssid only delays the breake in by a few minutes. WEP is good and WPA is even better. Mac filtering from what I gather just makes networking more difficult.

 

[baronvongogo]

I dont bother with mac filtering causes too many problems, I use WPA and turn SSID off thats enough as I live around lots of old people i doubt many would no how to break it

 

[tractorboy]

don't even bother with turning off ssid, programs like net stumbler have discoverey functions that will find ssid anyway.

wep is the only true protection use wpa if possible.