Windows 8 : Creating a Windows Network - Installing a Wireless Network (part 1) - Wireless Network Setup Choices

If you are using a wireless router, you need to configure wireless security and networking options after installing your network adapters. You need to do this even if you are just using it for its wired Ethernet connections, and don’t plan on using its wireless capability.

You really do have to worry about wireless network security. In my home, I can pick up signals from four separate wireless networks: mine, the house next door’s, and two others (I can’t tell whose they are). It’s not uncommon to find that you can receive signals from several neighbors. And people do actually drive around with laptops in their car, looking for free Internet access. To protect against both freeloaders and hackers, one or two protection techniques are used: encryption, which scrambles data, and authentication, which certifies that a given computer should be allowed to connect to the network. You can use either encryption alone, or both encryption and authentication.

1. Wireless Network Setup Choices

To be able to distinguish your network’s signal from others and to secure your network, you will be asked to make the following choices when you set up a wireless network:

• An SSID (Service Set Identifier)—A short name that you give your network, up to 32 characters in length. This could be your last name, your company name, your pet’s name, or whatever makes sense to you.

• A security type—The authentication method that your network uses to determine whether or not a given computer should be allowed to connect. For home and small office use, the choices are as follows, in order of increasing security:

• No Authentication (open)—No authentication is performed; any computer can connect to the network.

• WPA-Personal—A method that uses a passphrase to validate each computer’s membership in the network. The passphrase also serves as an encryption key. Like WEP, it has been found to be insecure. Don’t use it unless your wireless router can’t use WPA2 and its software can’t be upgraded

• WPA2-Personal—An improved version of WPA-Personal. This is the best choice for home and small office networks.

On corporate networks, other security types are sometimes used: 802.1X, WPA-Enterprise, and WPA2-Enterprise. These systems use a network server, smart card, or software certificate to validate network membership.

• An encryption type—The encryption method used to secure network data against eavesdropping. The options available depend on the security (authentication) type selected. The choices, in increasing order of security, are as follows:

• None—No data encryption is performed. This option is available only when the security type is set to No Authentication.

• WEP—Data is encrypted using the WEP protocol, using a 40-, 128-, or 256-bit key. WEP encryption can easily be broken by a hacker.

• TKIP—An encryption method that can be used with any of the WPA security types. A better choice is, however, is AES.

• AES—An improved encryption method that can be used with any of the WPA security types. AES is more secure and may offer faster network transmission. This is the best choice for home and small office networks.

• An encryption key—The key used to encrypt and decrypt data sent over the network. The different encryption methods use keys of different lengths. Longer (more bits) is better.

• For WEP encryption, Windows 8 supports 40-bit and 128-bit security. A 128-bit WEP key must be exactly 26 hexadecimal digits—that is, the numerals 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. It could look something like this: 5e534e503d4e214d7b6758284c. You can Google “Random WEP Key Generator” if you want help coming up with one.

A 40-bit key consists of exactly ten hexadecimal digits. Windows 8 will let you join an existing 40-bit WEP network but not create a new one.

Some routers and some earlier versions of Windows let you enter a WEP key as a text phrase, but the text method was not standardized, and was pretty much guaranteed not to work across brands of wireless routers and access points, so it has been abandoned.

• For WPA or WPA encryption, enter a passphrase: a word or phrase using any letters or characters, of eight or more letters—the more the better, up to 63. The passphrase is case sensitive and can contain spaces, but must not begin or end with a space. You might use two random words separated by punctuation symbols (for example, something like “topiary#clownlike”).

• The encryption key should be kept secret because, with it, someone can connect to your network, and from there get to your data and your shared files. (I usually write it on a sticky note that I put on the bottom side of the router.)

• A channel number—The channel number selects the frequency used to transmit your network’s data. The channels used in North America are usually 1, 6, and 11. The other channels overlap these and can interfere with each other. For double-bandwidth Wireless-N, the choices are 3 and 11. The preferred channel numbers are different in other countries.

Why are there so many different security methods? Because thieves, like rust, never sleep, and it seems that as soon as a new, safer method is standardized, someone figures out a way to break it. WEP stands for Wired-Equivalent Privacy, but that turned out to be a bit too optimistic—a determined person can break WEP security in as little as a minute. WPA (which stands for Wi-Fi Protected Access) uses an improved encrypting scheme, and can deter most attacks, but it, too, turns out to be crackable. WPA2 is a further improvement upon that, and it’s the best option we have at present. It should deter even the most determined hacker (although I suspect that it wouldn’t keep the National Security Agency scratching its collective head for too long, if you know what I mean).

Finally, one more bit of nomenclature: If you have a router or access point, you are setting up what is called an infrastructure network. Windows 8 has a wizard to help you choose the correct settings. We’ll go through this in the next section.

Which methods should you use to set up your network? On a home or small office network, you’re limited by the least capable of the devices on your network—your weakest link. So, use the strongest encryption method and the longest key that is supported by all of the devices and computers on your network. This means that if you have even one computer that doesn’t support WPA, you need to use WEP, and if you have even one computer that doesn’t support 256-bit keys, you have to use a 128-bit key. If you have a router, access point, or network adapter that doesn’t support WPA, it’s worth checking to see if you can update its internal software (firmware) or drivers to support this stronger encryption method.