I may have mentioned a while back that I bought an iPhone. It’s pretty neat.
Sometime last week I came across an article in the New York Times regarding a potential security flaw in the unit. The article referenced a Web site that spelled out exactly how a no-goodnik could take complete control of an iPhone through a flaw in the Safari browser.
One way to do this was through an unsecured wireless Internet connection. I just about soiled myself, because I had such a connection.
Clearly, I had to do something about this. Problem is that I had no idea how to do it. It took me posting a message to an Apple discussion forum just to find out how to change settings on the router. Technology is my life.
SMC does not make adding a password to an unsecured connection intuitive. I ended up having to guess which option and subsequently locked myself out of my own wireless network.
And in another post on the Apple forum, I learned that the protection that my SMC router offers, WEP, totally blows. Somebody with the right tools could crack a 128-bit WEP password in about a minute, I was told.
So after spending three or four hours over parts of three days trying to secure my connection, the obvious solution finally occurred to me: Buy an Airport Express. Duh.
This remarkable little device is the size of your average AC adapter. You plug your cable/DSL modem and USB printer into it, then plug the device into the wall.
After about three minutes of setup on the computer, I now have a WPA-secured wireless Internet connection complete with printer sharing. The signal isn’t quite as robust as the one from the SMC, but the peace of mind makes up for that.
The people next door probably are going to be upset with me now.