Hey, All,
An acquaintance of mine just got Time Warner broadband Internet service a few months ago. When TW came out & did the installation, they set him and his wife up with a Netgear wireless router so their two computers (at opposite ends of the house) could both connect to the Internet via the router. A routine setup, obviously.
Only problem (maybe?) is that the router only offers WEP encryption, and only 64-bit at that (no 128-bit option). I don't know much about networking, but I've read, and even saw a report on 60 Minutes a month or so ago, about how WEP can be hacked easily by someone who knows how to do it.
So I'd like you guys' expert advice: Just how easy is it to hack 64-bit WEP? Could some teenage neighbor kid living a few houses down, for example, or someone parked on their street with a laptop, hack into my friends' wireless network? Is it that easy to hack? Or is it a sitch whereby yes, it can be hacked, but only by fairly sophisticated people who'd have to specifically target my friends?
I guess what I need to know is, should I tell them they're pretty safe and not to worry about it or is is pretty much a necessity to get a new router with WPA encryption?
An acquaintance of mine just got Time Warner broadband Internet service a few months ago. When TW came out & did the installation, they set him and his wife up with a Netgear wireless router so their two computers (at opposite ends of the house) could both connect to the Internet via the router. A routine setup, obviously.
Only problem (maybe?) is that the router only offers WEP encryption, and only 64-bit at that (no 128-bit option). I don't know much about networking, but I've read, and even saw a report on 60 Minutes a month or so ago, about how WEP can be hacked easily by someone who knows how to do it.
So I'd like you guys' expert advice: Just how easy is it to hack 64-bit WEP? Could some teenage neighbor kid living a few houses down, for example, or someone parked on their street with a laptop, hack into my friends' wireless network? Is it that easy to hack? Or is it a sitch whereby yes, it can be hacked, but only by fairly sophisticated people who'd have to specifically target my friends?
I guess what I need to know is, should I tell them they're pretty safe and not to worry about it or is is pretty much a necessity to get a new router with WPA encryption?