Comments on: ISP-In-A-Box: The $500 Mac mini (Chapter VII, Network Security)

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 13:30:53 +0000

MAC Address Filtering is NOT secure. Please have a read of/listen to http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-011.htm (Steve Gibson’s Security Now Episode 11).

Just wanted to emphasise that MAC address security is not secure. You say "the spoofer still needs to know an authorized MAC address," which is true. The problem is that it is trivial to find that information from what any computer on your wireless network is already sending over the air. Any "bad person" who wants on your network will not even be inconvenienced by MAC address filtering.

If you want to do anything more than stop your neighbours from accidently connecting to your router you must use WPA.

By: David Emery

David Emery — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:18:59 +0000

Although it’s a bit hard to set up, I can recommend IPNetRouterX and the related products from Sustainable Softwarks (http://www.sustworks.com). And their tech support is super!

IPNetRouterX provides a much more comprehensive/power firewall/router solution, done all in software on the Mac. It’s -very efficient- (you can get the OS 9 versions and put it on that old 8600 you have sitting in your closet…)

It would be A Good Thing for someone here to look at this and post an informed review (I’m a satisfied customer, but I’m not qualified to really evaluate firewall products.)

dave

By: alex

alex — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 03:40:52 +0000

The comment about the router wireless security is really weak!!! MAC addresses can be spoofed easily, and having no encryption scheme on top of it means that once the list of MAC addresses has been setup, that’s a free access to the connection! Real wireless security means MAC tie-down, WPA, and preferably a VPN between wireless clients & the router…

That was just a quick comment though, the rest is awesome!!!

As soon as my Mac Mini comes in, I think I have a new project 🙂 Thanks

[WM: You’re certainly correct on all counts. Your wireless system is much safer with multiple layers of security. While Mac addresses are easily spoofed, the fact remains that the spoofer still needs to know an authorized MAC address to gain access to your network. After all, your router isn’t broadcasting a list of the acceptable numbers. And guessing 12 hex digits will take a good long while sitting in your driveway. Come to think of it, if the cracker really is good at picking numbers, he’d be better served playing Powerball or MegaMillions … less numbers, better results.]