Out of the box your broadband wireless router is wide open to everyone. This means if your neighbor is close enough to pick up your wireless signal then he/she can use your internet access and possibly see your computer and any personal data you may have on it.

It is not dificult to secure your router. We are simply going to enable a built in feature of your router.

This is called encryption. There are 2 main types of encryption WEP and WAP. We will primarily focus on WEP.
This is less secure than WAP but easier to setup. WEP is also more than enough to protest against would be neighbors trying to use your connection. 

Using encryption can be used also to keep any wireless devices in your own home of the internet like game consoles (WII, PSP, PS3, Etc..) Wireless Phones, MP3 Players or anything that has WIFI built in.

There are many different brands of wireless routers so we have provided links to some of the more popular ones.

Setup Wireless WEP Network on PC Running Windows XP

Here is a guide for setting up a Wireless Home Network.

PIA Router

PIA offers Routers Preconfigured with Parental Controls.

 Here is a general overview of WEP:

If you're having trouble getting a successful connection in your wireless network, it could be your encryption settings.  Try these tips to get securely connected:

1) Start with Encryption off (if you can)
Encryption is another level of complexity (see below) and you need to reduce complexity (walk before you run) when first setting up your wireless LAN.  So see if your client card and Access Point (if you're using one) will allow Encryption to be turned off (most do), get your networking, then set up Encryption.  You may also need to set the Authentication Type for some equipment. See Step 3 below.

2) Read the instructions
Your vendor may require a specific number of characters for the Encryption key.  They may also interpret the characters you input in a specific way. 

Look to see if you need to specify whether your key is an ASCII string (alpha-numeric) or Hexadecimal (Hex). If the key can accept Hexadecimal format, check to see whether you need to add anything to your key such as "0x" to denote a hex string.

3) Watch your Authentication Method
The 802.11 standard defines two types of Authentication - Open System and Shared Key. This Proxim article has a good explanation (with diagrams) of the difference between the two methods.  Some products let you set this mode independently of using WEP.  Others automatically use Open System if WEP is disabled and use Shared Key when WEP is enabled.

If you're having a problem communicating between a client and Access Point, first try using the Open System setting and WEP off.  When you enable WEP, change the setting to use Shared Key authentication for the best security.

4) Match WEP bit levels
You can mix 40/64 and 128bit WEP cards in a network.  However, 128 bit WEP cards can communicate with 40/64 bit WEP cards only if they are set to use 40 bit keys!  

5) Keep It Simple!
WEP implementations differ from vendor to vendor and documentation isn't the best.  Here are some tips for success

If your software offers the "passphrase" method of key generation:

• keep the passphrase string short

• use only numbers and letters and no spaces or other characters

 The "passphrase" key entry method is not the same as "string" entry.  The "passphrase" method allows you to enter an alpha-numeric phrase, but that entry is used to generate a Hexadecimal key of proper length.  

"String" entry usually requires that you input a an alpha-numeric character string of the proper length for the level of WEP that your product has.

If your software offers only manual key entry (usually you'll see a series of two character entry boxes):

• start with all 1s or 0s as your key, get it working, then increase the complexity of your code

• use Hexadecimal characters only (the numbers 0-9 and letters a-f) unless your documentation tells you otherwise