Wireless and Security

Security is vital to Wireless Network

Wireless computing gives us freedom of getting online without any restriction in time and space. Now you can take your laptop and get connection to the Internet wherever is offered wireless service. It can be a library, café or even beach. You can also purchase a wireless base station, called a router, for your home so you can get online anywhere in the house or in the immediate vicinity outdoors. But from information security awareness side, you need to do some thing to employ these options safe.What is Wireless network and how it’s work?Wireless (Wi-Fi) or 802.11 networks is a method of connecting a computer to other computers or to the Internet without linking them by cables. This network uses radio waves, just like cell phones and radios do. This communication, across wireless network, is similar two-way radio communication. 1. Routers collect the signal and decode, and then send information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection. 2. Wireless adapter on your laptop translate data into radio signal and transmit it using antenna.3. And vice versa… (http://www.howstuffworks.com) Why this kind connection is so unsafe?Because these transmissions occur in one frequency and mostly they don’t have protection against unauthorized access. So, that’s means that anyone in range can pick up the signal or transmit on the same time. From what wireless network are at risk?

* From peoples who listening transmitted information – eavesdroppers.
* From anyone in the range who can connect to your network – hackers.
* From unauthorized users who use your broadband internet connection without your permission.

What can protect your wireless connection?
* Encryption – use encryption to scramble over the network. Better use Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), than Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), because it is stronger.
* Anti-virus and anti-spyware software and a firewall – these things should be on every computer independent wireless network using or not.
* Caution - turn off your wireless network when you know you won't use it and also turn off identifier broadcasting on your wireless router. So your computer won’t send a signal to any device in the vicinity announcing its presence.
Limitation – allow only specific computers to access your wireless network and modify your router’s pre-set password for administration to something only you know.

Article Source:infosecuritylab

The Five IP Address Classes

CompTIA Network+ Certification Exam Tutorial
by: Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933

Passing the CompTIA Network+ certification exam and going on to become a subnetting expert is mastering the basics of IP addressing, and that means knowing the different classes, their default masks, and what these masks mean. Let’s get started!

Part of every IP address indicates the network the host is part of, and the other part identifies that particular host. You need to be able to look at an IP address and determine the network and host portions, and you do that by determining the class of the address.

Many books list only three network classes, but there are five. Since you shouldn't assign an address from the last two classes to a host, you better know what they are!

Class A networks have a beginning octet of 1 - 126.

Class B networks have a beginning octet of 128-191.

Class C networks have a beginning octet of 192 - 223.

Notice a number missing? 127 is the reserved first octet for loopback addresses, such as the 127.0.0.1 address assigned to a PC.

Class D networks are reserved for multicasting. Class D addresses begin with an octet in the 224 - 239 range.

Class E networks are reserved for "experimental use", and the first octet of these addresses is 240 - 255. Those addresses are reserved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Neither Class D nor Class E networks should be assigned to host devices. For exam and real-world purposes, the entire address range 224.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255 are unacceptable for assignment to network hosts, as is any address beginning with 127.

Now, what does all this have to do with identifying the network and host portions of an address? Classes A, B, and C all have different default network masks, and it's that mask that tells you which part of an address is the network portion and which part is the host portion.

Class A's default mask is 255.0.0.0, or /8
Class B's default mask is 255.255.0.0, or /16
Class C's default mask is 255.255.255.0, or /24.

Even if you were already familiar with these default masks, you may be wondering what that "/8" business is. This is another way to express a network mask. It's called prefix notation, and it's much less complicated than it sounds. The number behind the slash is simply the number of consecutive ones at the beginning of the mask when it's expressed in binary.

255.0.0.0 in binary is 11111111 00000000 00000000 00000000.
255.255.0.0 in binary is 11111111 11111111 00000000 00000000.
255.255.255.0 in binary is 11111111 11111111 11111111 00000000.

When you see all the values in an octet set to 1, the value of the octet is 255. If you see an IP address with an octet set higher than 255, it's invalid. ("256.1.1.1" literally cannot happen, so it's an invalid address.)

When you see all the values in an octet set to 1, the value of the octet is 255. If you see an IP address with an octet set higher than 255, it's invalid. ("256.1.1.1" literally cannot happen, so it's an invalid address.)

Prefix notation is the preferred way of expressing subnet masks. A mask of /8 is pronounced "slash eight", which is a lot better than saying "two-fifty-five zero zero zero". It also has less numbers to type, which I still believe is the real reason we use it! You might not see prefix notation on your Network+ exam, but since it’s so commonly used in network documentation, you need to know it.

Now, about those network and host portions.....
The Class A network mask 255.0.0.0 means the first octet of the address is the network portion, and the final three octets are the host portion.

The Class B network mask 255.255.0.0 means the first two octets of the address are the network portion, and the final two octets are the host portion.

The Class C network mask 255.255.255.0 means the first three octets of the address are the network portion, and the final octet is the host portion.

Identifying the network or host portion of a given IP address is a two-step process:
1. Determine the address class by examining the first octet
2. Use the network mask to determine the network and host portions

Let's get a little practice with this. What is the network portion of the address 23.14.189.200?

1. The first octet falls into the Class A range
2. The network mask for Class A is 255.0.0.0, meaning that the first octet of the address is the network portion and the remaining three octets are the host portion

That's really all there is to it. The first octet, "23", is the network portion. The remaining octets, "14.189.200", comprise the host portion.

It’s just that simple to identify the network and host portions of an IP address. But what happens when we run out of IP addresses for our hosts? Find out in my next CompTIA Network Plus exam tutorial!

About The Author, Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com).
For his FREE seven-part course, “How To Pass The CCNA”, visit the website and sign up today! Daily free CCNA, CCNP, Network+, Security+, and A+ certification questions, too!

WiFi Skype Phone

Panasonic KX-WPA102 WiFi Skype phone reviewed

Donald Melanson wrote:

Panasonic's new KX-WPA102 WiFi Skype phone doesn't seem to have made much of a blip on the Internets just yet, but the folks at Phicons managed to get their hands on one, chatting it up for a full review. Right out of the box, the phone's sleek and shiny design especially impressed them -- certainly standing out from some of Panasonic's other

Skype-compatible offerings -- as did the phone's well-balanced weight, which they found "just right." They also dug the phone's included WiFi basestation, although you can simply toss it in the closet and use your existing basestation if you prefer. On the downside, they found the Panny's sound quality to be somewhat lacking, describing it as good in general but mentioning that they encountered some occasional crackling during a call, though they add that the problem could simply be due to network conditions. That said, they still wound up giving the phone their full recommendation, though it's not clear when you'll actually be able to get your hands on one or how much it'll cost.

How the Internet began

The Internet as we know it today owes its origins to the United States army

It was the Cold War and the Americans feared that if there was a nuclear attack, communications would break down. So was born the germ of an idea for the Internet. The first working model was set up in 1969 when four computers in separate locations were connected together. Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Stanford Research Institute (SRI), University of California Santa Barbara and University of Utah collaborated to make this happen. The concept came from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa) at the United States Department of Defense which was looking at a new type of computer network to link computers on different networks. The army specified that when one segment of the network was down, traffic should be diverted to a different route. In this sense, the network never really 'dies' - it just finds an alternative way to get information through. It is useful to visualise the Internet as a honeycomb of network connections. If one path goes down, the network attempts another path, and so on, until eventually information finds its way to its intended destination. From its original four-computer network, the Arpanet grew to 213 computers by 1971. Research into the way data would be passed along the network (packet switching) and open architecture standards for communication (TCP/IP) led to its evolution into the Internet. By 1985, the Internet had blossomed into a community of researchers and developers. With the arrival of electronic mail, more people began to use it for daily communications. When the World Wide Web and HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) were developed, they allowed people to easily publish and share information. The result: the Internet's popularity took off. - By Leslie Goh (from the Straits Times Interactive)