On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 12:00 PM, JOHN CARMONNE <[email protected]> wrote: > What is a good reason to have a WPA password for my NETGEAR when all my > machines require an administrator password to connect to them.
The Wireless Access Point (WAP) password on your Netgear router has nothing (directly) to do with access to the systems on your network. It is used to restrict/control access to the network itself. The primary reason I can think of to use the strongest wireless connection security you can is to prevent others from accessing the Internet via your router. Most people don't like to receive cease and desist letters from their ISP because they've been (surprise!) downloading movies illegally. Sure you would never do that, but how about someone who happens to be pirating your Internet to pirate movies? A secondary concern is they might be able to access/hack into your systems even though the systems are password protected. You can argue the probabilities of that happening all your want, but frankly I'd prefer to just not give anyone the possibility of being on the network rather than trusting that the machines on the network will be "secure enough". A final consideration which doesn't sound like it applies in your case pertains to using 802.11n. Connecting a client with 802.11n using either WEP or WPA (vs WPA2) limits the throughput. The reason for this is that the 802.11n spec restricts any client to at *most* 802.11g throughput unless it is either not using any type of encryption (which is absurd) or is using WPA2 (and I think also AES ???). -irrational john -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
