Re: wireless security on notebooks

[krymson () gmail com]

I think you should look at a different solution. Fiddling with the firewall is easier than fiddling with Windows, even 
to do things easily done in Linux!

This is what I think you have said:
1) You use Sygate as your personal firewall on the laptops (commendable, since I use that one as well!)

2) You want to allow file sharing at home with your trusted systems but not out in the big bad world.

The reason I switched from the early ZoneAlarm products to Sygate many, many years ago was it's configurability 
(something ZA lost). You can make this firewall as complex as you want.

In fact, you can allow file sharing to just your known systems and not to anyone else. I'm not sitting on my home 
computers to give exact instructions, but you could open up Sygate and get to Options/Tools -> Advanced Rules. You will 
want to add some rules that allow ports 445 and 139 TCP. You want your local system to allow it both to and from, and 
the remote system should be set up with your other systems' MAC addresses (in Windows, 'ipconfig /all' should show it). 

This should let your systems connect into the file sharing, but everyone else should still be denied as normal.

If this infallible? Diehards will say no, but I'd be surprised if anyone will try to snag a trusted MAC just to get to 
your file shares.




<- snip ->
My question is regarding wireless security, on win xp.
I have a home network, with a wireless access point and two notebooks
(and one desktop connected via cable).
When I'm at home, I want to use the access point's firewall, and leave
all the other things unsecured, like the file sharing turned on on the
notebooks (I'm using WEP).
When my wife goes out with hers computer, I have to rely the security
on hers memory to turn on the firewall.
What I want is to install a virtual wireless network adapter, and to
use one wireless adapter with my home's wifi network and another with
the others. Then, leave the firewall always on (I use sygate) and make
it work only for the foreign networks. I didn't found souch virtual
network adapters. I have the one that comes with VMWare, but it
doesn't have the "wireless networks" tab. This type of solution is a 5
minutes work on Linux, it can be done by configuring a single text
file, but for windows, I'm getting mad.
I don't want to fill my computer of antivirus, anti spyware, and
Norton rubbish, I prefer a simple configuration like this.
Please, if you have some ideas about this, share it with me, or
perhaps to tell me that I'm missing something that makes this
situation nonviable.

Best regards,

Andres H
Argentina