How safe is your wireless?

So you’ve got Wi-Fi at home or work, and it’s great. You can sit in the backyard with your laptop and work, or use the Internet from your desktop PC without having to run a network cable around the house.

But who set up your network, and is it safe? As I asked last week: Is it “open” like a Wi-Fi network at a coffee shop, so anyone can use it and sniff packets? Or, did you set it up with a password, so that your data and your communications are encrypted and safe?

In my experience, at least half of the home and business Wi-Fi networks in Missoula (and I learned this rough statistic this by driving around town with my MacBook and watching the networks come and go) are not as secure as they can be. Some are wide open and can be used by anyone without a password, and I covered the issues with that last week http://www.songdogtech.net/ .

By MARK RATLEDGE – Mark Ratledge is a information technology consultant in Missoula. His Web site is http://www.songdogtech.net.

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2007/08/13/business/biz07.txt