Confession time

I have to confess that, last week whilst I was outside the hairdresser's waiting for Pam, I connected to the Internet with my iPod Touch via someone's wireless access point. I must point out that it was impossible for me to gain access to their computer using the iPod and I was only online for a brief period. Nether the less I was stealing their bandwidth.

Most of the available access points that I found were secured by one means or another. If they hadn't been I would have had a choice. Many people with wireless access assume that it will only work within their house or flat - not true. Whilst the signal strength might be low, with a good aerial, a connection is perfectly possible quite a distance away.

I've been tweaking my wireless access to try and get better coverage. At the same time I've implemented some basic security. First off, I have file and printer sharing turned off on both my laptop and desktop. Even if someone gets onto my network via the wireless connection they won't be able to get to my files.

Every network device has a unique number called a MAC address. You can set your wireless access to only allow devices with the correct address to connect. It is called MAC filtering. Of course experts can spoof MAC addresses and still gain access but there is little you can do about anyone who is so determined.

The most secure way of preventing access is to use WPA encryption but that takes some setting up and is not available on all network products. Most wireless devices support the simpler WEP encryption and although it can be easily got round it is better than nothing to stop people casually logging on to your network. It comes in 64 bit, 128 bit and 256 bit forms. The pay off though, is that with a higher level of security comes a slowing down of your data. In any case 128 bit is only marginally more difficult to crack than 64 bit so you may as well use 64bit.

Of course, if you don't need wireless access, then simply turn it off in your router. That way nobody can get onto your network.

If you have a Telefonica router; you do this by typing 192.168.1.1 as the address in your web browser. The user name and password are both 1234 by default. Under Advanced Setup select Wireless LAN then Wireless and untick the box marked Enable Wireless LAN. By the way this is also the section of the configuration where you setup WEP encryption.

Lastly my tweaking. I've invested in a high gain aerial from Carrefour. For just under 25€ they sell a 6dBi indoor aerial which gives a much better coverage than the 3dBi aerial supplied with the router. The manufactures claim 1Km in open space.

I did try setting up a "repeater" to re-transmit the wireless access in the lounge but it proved difficult to get it working properly so I've given it up.