Wireless security
You can reduce the risk of being wrongly accused of illegal filesharing by securing your wireless network. We give you some advice below on what you can do.
Am I at risk of being hacked?
On a typical UK street TalkTalk found that 35% of WiFi points were either completely open or had WEP security. WEP security can now be breached by anyone who follows simple instructions available on YouTube. We demonstrated this as we easily hacked into two WEP-secured networks on this street (with permission of course). All we wanted to do was expose how easy this was to do, but imagine if someone else didn’t have such good intentions. WPA security is far more secure and indeed more widely used, but only 1% of people on the surveyed street were using the strongest WPA2 security. Whilst WEP is better than no security, it’s still an easy target for hackers.
What’s the difference between WPA and WEP?
Open: no security whatsoever as anyone with a laptop and a wireless card could connect to your WiFi.
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy): can be easily hacked; software and guides are readily available on the internet.
WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access): very secure and is considerably more difficult to hack than WEP.
WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2): not available on all routers, but is the most secure connection currently available.
What could happen if I am hacked?
You could be disconnected from your broadband service provider, even if you have done nothing wrong. Once hackers are connected to your wireless network they can use it as a mask to download whatever they please, including illegal music. With the proposed laws it would be you who is branded an ‘internet pirate’ and you who is disconnected from your broadband service indefinitely.
What can I do to stay secure?
First of all you need to find out which security you have – you can either ask the person who deals with your network, or access this yourself through the router settings (by following the instructions that came with your router). If it is ‘Open’ or ‘WEP’ you should change it to WPA security, or even better WPA2. Adopting WPA will mean it will take hackers weeks instead of minutes to connect to your network, enough to deter hackers who intend to use your connection for illegal filesharing. You can do this by following many of the online guides, or following the instructions that came with your router. Not all routers and computers support WPA, so you might need to upgrade your wireless devices. www.practicallynetworked.com suggests other ways to secure your wireless network.
Comment post by JD @ 2010-07-09 01:48:22
It's sad to see the Internet, which was once a great place of freedom and expression, being targeted by many big media instustries who are ill-advising the Government of reports that claims the industry is losing out on billions, and has had nothing to gain from piracy, which have all been proven and reported to false. This is all in an attempt to pressure the Governemtn to rush through with such rash, careless and unthought out new laws. The rational behind many pirates comes down to price and availability: 1. Media is far overpriced; the price of 30 music albums would cost you the same price as a flight from London to New York. 2. Availability. The choice for many in obtaining media the most convenient, fastest and easiest way is BitTorrent. This method of distrobution brings together communities of music/movie lovers from fair and wide from accross the world. Just as in the way Facebook has changed the way in which people socialise and come togethert, so has BitTorrent, but the industry does not seem to want to pick up on this: open a fairly price, legal torrent site and they could well be 3/4 of their way to solving this issue, With the technologies available today, is there such need of a record label? The Internet allows for self-advertisement, and is far more powerful than the millions of pounds that is spent my media companies with advertisements, who then take an unfair porition from the artists in return.
Comment post by Ola25Ortega @ 2010-07-07 10:45:49
Every one acknowledges that humen's life seems to be expensive, nevertheless some people need money for various issues and not every man gets big sums cash. So to get fast personal loans and student loan will be good way out.
Comment post by Joel NIchols @ 2010-06-27 15:50:14
The way in which the music and movie industries is absolutely ridiculous. It would be like if the post office sued Gmail because it is putting them out of business. The main reasons people pirate are simple: 1. It's priced too high or they just don't feel the content is worth the price. Go look on Steam, when I can buy a full game for not much more than a song, you can see why Steam are having no problem making money, yet the music industry claims it's screwed. 1 pound for a song is too much. I can buy an album on iTunes for about 12 pounds, but I wouldn't be willing to part for anywhere near that much for an album. It's simple, they're overpriced. 2. It's not available. Simple. If say, a movie is available in the United States of America, but not the United Kingdom, then it's pretty likely that UK citizens are going to resort to piracy. Personally I use Spotify for music, and I think this is the kind of thing that the music industry needs to focus on instead. I'm perfectly happy to pay 5 or 10 pounds a month to listen to the music that I like.