If you’re adding a wireless network to your home or office, security should be your first consideration before you send a single packet over the airwaves. First, for those who are currently shopping for wireless hardware, let me list the standards that you should look for:

-  Do the WEP. WEP is blissfully short for Wired Equivalency Privacy. It’s a form of encryption that acts as your main defense against outside intrusion. Without the proper key (or, in human jargon, the proper password), a hacker is faced with a decoding job. That’s not a hard job because hacker applications are available that will help the bad guys decode WEP, but at least it’s a first level of defense. WEP is supported in wireless hardware at several different levels, ranging from 40-bit encryption (a rather weak implementation that might as well be called Diet Protection) to 256-bit (Armor Plated Protection). The 128-bit WEP standard is the most common these days, and it does a creditable job of keeping your data secure. Choose hardware that supports the 128-bit WEP standard whenever possible, and make sure that WEP is enabled. Make your WEP key as long as allowed by your hardware and also use the same common sense that you use when choosing your Internet passwords. Keys should be completely random. Don’t use your middle name or your Social Security number, and remember to mix both letters and numbers together.

-  LEAP for security. Man, these acronyms are such a delight. (If you need an aspirin, I’ll understand.) Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol (LEAP) is also an encryption protocol, but unlike WEP, the key is automatically changed periodically while you’re connected, which turns a hacking job from a difficult proposition into a nearly impossible feat. You can specify the time delay before the key changes . . . five minutes ought to do it. (Big grin.) Hardware that offers LEAP is much more expensive than the run-of-the-mill WEP hardware, but for those who need the best possible wireless security, it’s the best that you can get. After you configure your wireless network, here are the security guidelines I recommend that you should follow:

-  Use Virtual Private Networking (VPN) for extra security. As you can read in the next article of this article, VPN is a hard nut for an outsider to crack. When security is all important, set up a VPN session.

-  Secure your SSID. I know that sounds weird, but your SSID is your Service Set Identifier essentially, the name for your WAP or base station. Change your SSID immediately when you install your wireless base station or access point, making sure that you’ve configured your system so that your SSID is not broadcast to the outside world. (This means that you have to configure your wireless connections manually your WAP or base station won’t show up automatically when your PC is in range.) Determining your SSID is the first step in hacking your wireless network. I guarantee that it’ll be practically impossible for an outsider to guess that your SSID is Bullwinkle007 (or something similar).

-  Change your access point/base station password. Naturally, you also don’t want anyone to be able to guess the password that secures your wireless access point or base station, so change that hardware password to something unique. If anyone asks you to jump in his vehicle for a bit of war driving, you’ll understand why wireless security is so important. The term refers to hackers who rig up their cars with a laptop PC, equipped with a wireless network card and a cheap omnidirectional antenna, and then drive around neighborhoods in their town looking for unsecured wireless networks. When such an example of easy pickings is found, the hacker can use any broadband connection that’s hooked up to that network (read that as free Internet connection), or much worse haul away copies of the files and documents found on that network.

Using Wireless Hardware in Windows XP

After you install your wireless base station or WAP, you’re ready to configure your PC for use on your network.

Preparing to install

Before you begin the installation of an internal adapter card, make sure that

-  You’ve read the manual. Even if you’ve already installed an adapter card in your PC, take a few minutes to check the documentation that shipped with the card. A maxim to live by: It’s better to know about a “gotcha” before you install.

-  You’ve gathered the Big Four. That means a Phillips screwdriver, a plastic bowl to hold any spare parts, a good light source, and some sort of static-free cover for your work surface. (Newspaper always works well if I’m away from my workbench.)

-  You’ve grounded yourself. After you’ve removed the cover from your PC, I highly recommend touching the metal chassis of your computer to dissipate any static electricity that’s stowing away on your body before it can cause damage to the card.

Installation tricks

All manufacturers of wireless adapter cards (for desktops) and wireless PC Cards (for laptops) include their own installation and setup programs which, under Windows XP, also create the necessary wireless connection automatically so I won’t go into the gory details here. However, here are some suggestions that I can give you that will help with the installation, no matter what type of card you’re using:

-  Choose between ad hoc and infrastructure. You might be prompted to choose between ad hoc and infrastructure mode. In most cases, you want to choose infrastructure mode (where your laptop and PC workstations connect by using a base station or wireless access point) instead of ad hoc (where the devices actually talk directly to each other on a specific channel number that you determine, just like the CB radio days of old, without a base station or WAP). Note: If you’re trying to connect your wireless device to your existing wired network, you must use infrastructure mode.

-  Check your WEP encryption. When prompted for WEP information, use the highest level that the PC Card supports. WEP is designed to automatically fall back to the encryption level used by your base station or WAP.

-  Check your SSID. You need an SSID that matches the SSID used by your base station or WAP. Remember: Change it to the unique value that you used on your base station or WAP. For the best security, don’t use the default SSID!

-  Keep your drivers current. I sound like a broken record, but check for the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s Web site every time that you install new hardware . . . and that includes wireless networking hardware.

Making the connection

You have two methods of connecting to your wireless network in infrastructure mode: the easy way (where your base station or WAP broadcasts its SSID for public use) and the harder way (where you’ve turned off the SSID broadcast feature for greater security, which I mention earlier in this article). The easy way? Just plug your wireless network card into your laptop, and Windows XP will automatically search for and connect to your network. If you’re using a desktop PC with a wireless card, this same process occurs when you first log in to Windows XP. (See? I told you it was easy.) Windows XP displays a notification icon in the taskbar letting you know that the connection has been made, as well as how strong the signal is. If you’re smart and keep your SSID close to the chest, follow these steps to do things the slightly harder way:

1. Choose Start -> Connect To, right-click the Wireless Network Connection icon, and then click View Available Wireless Networks from the shortcut menu that appears. Windows XP displays the Connect to Wireless Network dialog box.

2. Click the Advanced button. The Properties dialog box opens.

3. Click the Add button in the Properties dialog box.

4. Type the matching SSID value from your base station or WAP in the Network Name (SSID) text box, and then select the Data Encryption (WEP Enabled) check box (if necessary). If you’ve set your own WEP key, select the This Key is Provided for Me Automatically check box, and then type the key in the Network Key text box. Click the Key Length drop-down list and choose the proper key length. (It’s okay to use an automatically generated key, but your base station or WAP is likely to choose a shorter key than you can assign manually.)

5. Make sure that the This Is a Computer-to-Computer (Ad Hoc) Network check box is deselected.

6. Click OK to close the dialog box. This adds the network to your Preferred Networks list.

7. Click OK again to return to your Windows XP desktop, which should initiate the connection.