Wireless Firewall
 

Ok guys I have Linksys wireless router for my wireless internet at home. How do I protect it so only my laptop and my wife's laptop can use it?
I figture there's some kind of firewall I can buy but I'm not 100% sure.

I have a feeling the people living above me are stealing it so I want to stop it.

Just change your router pw, and deny access to any users not listed.

You want to enable encryption on it using WEP 64 or 128bit, 128 is more secure but obviously longer. The 64 bit password has to be 10 characters long, using 0-9, a-f and A-F. 128 is the same just 26 characters long. You can enable encryption by opening a browser(switch to firefox if ur not using it already IE7 blows, better on vista than xp but still), and in the address bar at the top type "192.168.0.1" it should bring you to a login screen, login name could be admin or administrator and the password could be pass password admin or it could be blank, look in the manual for sure. Then your looking for a wireless tab at the top, then encryption or something to that nature, the menu's are usually pretty good about being self explanatory. WEP stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy, just fyi.

Any other questions just holler.

log into your router, and set up the WEP encryption it will give you 4 passowrds you and your wife can use. im not 100% sure how to do it the way phate said. but thats the way ive been using it is just a password basically.

Thank you for the help.

Here's what I don't understand. My wife's laptop didn't come with wireless so we bought the PCMI card and if she want's to connect she had to put the password in.
But when I came to connect it asked me if I really wanted to connect to an unsecure network. I don't understand it.

I lost my Linksys guide with all the router numbers and pw's in it, but its typically something like "1234" or "user" "admin" "password". You just need to make it a good pw, a 64 bit is fine, nobody is going to go through the trouble to break it on a wireless home network unless they have a very good reason lol.

As per the wireless internet card, and connecting to an unsecure network, its going to do that every time you connect to a network that isnt set as your 'home' network. You sure you signed into YOUR wireless network?

the password shouold be "admin" to get into the router options on your computer.

I have the password to connect using the IP.

Yes I'm sure I'm connecting to my network. I'm pretty sure other people aren't using my last name as the name of their network.

Probably because your network isnt secured yet until you set the pw up.

WEP gives the encryption... YOu dont have it on yet.

No the password is setup. Like I said my wife has to enter a 32 character password to be allowed on. Without it, it won't let her use the internet. But with my laptop it says it's unsecure and it doesn't ask me for the password and I can use it just fine.

hah.. weird. What kind of adapter does she have? Brand?

It's Linksys, same as our router.

I don't know if it matter's but my laptop is a Dell.

I'll keep searching online to see what I can find.

Thank you everyone for your help. I found a PDF online that had a completely walkthrough with pictures of each step. My connection is now secure.

Thank you again everyone for your help.

I have no idea why my wife's laptop asked for a password but mine didn't. All I know now is that it says the connection is secure and that we both have to enter the password I just created to join in.

yeah that is how my sister's and dad's laptops work well they only do it once and then if they leave( like my sister in college) they just have to reenter it when they come back

If you really want to make it secure, restrict access by MAC address and don't broadcast the SSID.