If you've got more than one computer at home, you may be thinking about setting up a wireless network. It can make file-sharing a breeze, with no more having to burn data onto a CD-ROM or trying to fit it all into a memory stick (or -shudder- a floppy disc!) to get it across the room. And going wireless lets you position the router in a convenient central location, without having to run wires along the baseboards or under carpets.
But setting up a wireless (or 'wi-fi') system can be a daunting task if you've never done it. Or is it? With technology today, firing up a wireless router and adding a few access points has never been easier. Many of the setup routines are automated, with your input limited to thinking up a few passwords, or typing in some information off the label on a piece of hardware. Let's take a quick look at some of the hardware common to any wireless setup.
The core of any network is the router. If you already have a broadband/ADSL/cable modem, it's best to get one with the modem function built-in, and replace your existing one. If you don't want to do that, make sure the router you decide upon can be plugged into your modem. The router transmits and receives the signal to your computers. Almost all of them have several Ethernet ports to connect devices with a cable. This is handy if you have a computer or network-accessible printer nearby, and don't need a wireless connection. The important thing to remember when purchasing a router is to make sure it's 802.11g compatible. The 'g' means it's faster than the older 'b' standard. You may see references to an upcoming 'n' standard as well. The final requirements for this standard have not been fully decided as of yet, so if you get a 'pre-n' piece of hardware, the standards may change, leaving your device unable to function properly.
Your computer will need a wireless access point to communicate with the router. There are two main types. The first is the PCI wireless network card. This is an internal card, like many modems, and must be installed inside the computer in an empty card slot. These will have an antenna that sticks out of the back of your PC, which may not give you the best signal if the antenna is hidden away. Some models have a short cable for the aerial, so you can mount it somewhere to improve reception.
The second type of network connection is a USB adapter. This attaches to an open USB port on your computer, and has either a built-in antenna, or a cable to a separate aerial, like the PCI card. These are portable between computers, but may not receive as well as a built-in card. Also, they can be bumped if they stick out of your computer.
With this basic knowledge, you may find that configuring your own wireless network is amazingly easy. In no time, you can be surfing from anywhere in your house, or passing files back and forth effortlessly from one computer to another. Many other devices can now also access your home network, such as game consoles, cameras and cell phones. Unplug yourself, and see how much fun it can be to go without a wire.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wireless Network Security
Kismet is a wireless network detector / sniffer which can give you a vast amount of information about wireless networks. Wireless network security flaws are well documented but often very hard for the common person to understand. I will be showing you how to use kismet with out even having to install Linux, or compile kismet.
First you need to proceed to remote-exploit.org and download and burn their Auditor CD. (IF you don’t know how to burn an ISO image, go to Google). This version of Linux doesn’t install or modify your hard drive; it will boot from the CD and use a Ram Drive (On your Memory).
Auditor is not only a great tool for testing wireless network security with kismet but it also has many other computer security tools on it as well.
Client Window
Next, to start Kismet proceed to the Linux version of the start menu, and press Auditor. Now proceed to the wireless /scanning/kismet tools/kismet.
Once you click on Kismet it will ask you for a default location to place the Kismet log files for analyzing later, just press the desktop or temp file.
Now I will show you how to use Kismet. When kismet initially opens you will see a greenish box with numbers and network names (If any are near you) clicking away don’t be overwhelmed. (Also I can’t show you how to use kismet if you don’t have the correct wireless adapter, get an ORINICO Gold Classic Card off EBAY.) The Orninco gold classic card will be automaticly detected by auditor linux.
The Kismet columns will show the wireless networks SSID (Name), Type of device (Access point, gateway) Encryption or no Encryption, an IP range and number of packets. Kismet will pick up hidden networks with SSID broadcast Disabled also, Netstumbler will not.
Now Press H, to bring up the Help Menu. This will give the nuts and bolts on how to use kismet. If you tab down to the network you are auditing and press “C”, Kismet will show you all the computers that are using that wireless access point / gateway. This Kismet screen will show you the clients MAC address, Manufacture of Wireless Adapter, IP address range and traffic.
Kismet: Help Menue
Now to get out of that screen press “Q”. Tab Down on the Main Kismet Screen to another SSID and press “I”. This Kismet window will show detailed information about the wireless network. The Kismet detail screen will show the type of network (Infrastructrure / Adhoc), signal strength, channel, encryption type, and much more.
Kismet will also give you sound alerts when new wireless networks are discovered or security alerts or suspicious clients are in range. Suspicious clients would be people like you who are using Kismet or Networkstumbler. Unlike you these could be Wardrivers looking for venerable networks to hack into.
Kismet Alert Page
You can prevent War drivers from discovering your wireless network by performing a proper site survey which will help limit signal bleed off to unneeded areas. You should write down the suspicious MAC address and keep an eye on your access logs. If the War Drivers are really stupid just look out your window and look for cars with weird antennas.HA HA HA.
Kismet is more than just a tool to discover wireless networks; it can be used in conjunction with other tools to crack WEP/WPA. Many websites will claim that WEP can be cracked in less that five minutes. This is only half the truth because it could take many hours,days,months to gather enough packets to crack. Good luck and have fun learning the more advanced applications of kismet.
First you need to proceed to remote-exploit.org and download and burn their Auditor CD. (IF you don’t know how to burn an ISO image, go to Google). This version of Linux doesn’t install or modify your hard drive; it will boot from the CD and use a Ram Drive (On your Memory).
Auditor is not only a great tool for testing wireless network security with kismet but it also has many other computer security tools on it as well.
Client Window
Next, to start Kismet proceed to the Linux version of the start menu, and press Auditor. Now proceed to the wireless /scanning/kismet tools/kismet.
Once you click on Kismet it will ask you for a default location to place the Kismet log files for analyzing later, just press the desktop or temp file.
Now I will show you how to use Kismet. When kismet initially opens you will see a greenish box with numbers and network names (If any are near you) clicking away don’t be overwhelmed. (Also I can’t show you how to use kismet if you don’t have the correct wireless adapter, get an ORINICO Gold Classic Card off EBAY.) The Orninco gold classic card will be automaticly detected by auditor linux.
The Kismet columns will show the wireless networks SSID (Name), Type of device (Access point, gateway) Encryption or no Encryption, an IP range and number of packets. Kismet will pick up hidden networks with SSID broadcast Disabled also, Netstumbler will not.
Now Press H, to bring up the Help Menu. This will give the nuts and bolts on how to use kismet. If you tab down to the network you are auditing and press “C”, Kismet will show you all the computers that are using that wireless access point / gateway. This Kismet screen will show you the clients MAC address, Manufacture of Wireless Adapter, IP address range and traffic.
Kismet: Help Menue
Now to get out of that screen press “Q”. Tab Down on the Main Kismet Screen to another SSID and press “I”. This Kismet window will show detailed information about the wireless network. The Kismet detail screen will show the type of network (Infrastructrure / Adhoc), signal strength, channel, encryption type, and much more.
Kismet will also give you sound alerts when new wireless networks are discovered or security alerts or suspicious clients are in range. Suspicious clients would be people like you who are using Kismet or Networkstumbler. Unlike you these could be Wardrivers looking for venerable networks to hack into.
Kismet Alert Page
You can prevent War drivers from discovering your wireless network by performing a proper site survey which will help limit signal bleed off to unneeded areas. You should write down the suspicious MAC address and keep an eye on your access logs. If the War Drivers are really stupid just look out your window and look for cars with weird antennas.HA HA HA.
Kismet is more than just a tool to discover wireless networks; it can be used in conjunction with other tools to crack WEP/WPA. Many websites will claim that WEP can be cracked in less that five minutes. This is only half the truth because it could take many hours,days,months to gather enough packets to crack. Good luck and have fun learning the more advanced applications of kismet.
Ecommerce - Its Meaning and Importance
The Internet is now a flourishing industry. With the technology advancing at a fast rate, more and more people are open to computers and internet. Increasingly they are learning to utilize the Internet for their day to day needs. Here Ecommerce websites take a front seat, moving out to the millions of people searching for your kind of product or services online.
Putting it simply, Ecommerce or Electronic Commerce means buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Before making any decision in business, it is worth taking into consideration the benefits, the company would reap on implementation of the new strategy of Ecommerce. So, the first and foremost thing that you need to know is whether your kind of business needs an ecommerce feature enabled website?
Ecommerce-is it for you?
The arrival of ecommerce websites has brought upheaval in the process of purchasing and selling goods. In this regard, it is important to consider websites like ebay, amazon etc. They have largely used the ecommerce procedure to make sales revenue.
So, whether you have an existing business or launching a brand new business, whether the volume of your business is large or small, you can always generate profit by demonstrating your products or services online, thereby acquiring a large amount of viewer exposure. In a nutshell, just any selling/buying business can profit by the ecommerce method.
So how can you earn BIGGER SALES REVENUE from an ecommerce website?
The benefits of having an ecommerce website are many.
Revealation – Your products showcased on your website, provides a huge exposure to the millions of visitors on the web. For example, if you have a computer showroom in a city, the visitors that you would get, will only be people from the city itself and possibly some from in and around the city.
Once in a while there will be visitors from places outside your city. Thus your product exposure is limited. On the contrary, if your products are demonstrated on a website, it connects you to the plentifull people who access the internet and looking for similar product as that of yours.
Time and Convenience – Time is one of the crucial factor in our lives now-a-days. A customer may find it difficult to visit your store physically everytime. On the other hand, if you have your store put on view on the Internet, anyone can pay a visit to your online store at their convenient time.
Your store shuts down at some point of time. But your e-store works 24X7 for you to bring in customers. Moreover, with all your product images and descriptions provided on your estore, the customer gets a detailed idea about your product and you do not have to squander time briefing the same thing to each and every visitor to your store. It further saves time per transaction. Any sales executive will definitely take some time to illustrate your product to each customer. Your ecommerce website does the same task to hundreds and thousands of your likely customers at the same time.
As all the information about your product are made available earlier to your customer’s visit, much less time is required to convey the benefits of your product to them, thereby making it easier to close the deal. Thus, many number of transactions can take place within a day. Presenting your Product through Demonstrations and illustrations, depicts a clear and thorough idea about your product without the effort of hiring and training personnel to do so.
Cost Effective - Sustaining a store in a primary locality is not highly expensive. On the contrary using the ecommerce is a whole lot easier technique of demonstrating and providing information about your products. Moreover promotion of your store and its products should be carried out from time-to-time. Web advertisement expenses are also less compared to print or other audio-visual medias, like radio or TV.
In an ecommerce website all that you need is a top-notch website design, that have a look and feel equally promising as your competitor, Search Engine Optimization to rank your website with your other competitors, and the annual hosting charges.
Largely speaking, there are no major hindrance of Ecommerce websites. With time, more and more people are realizing ecommerce as a viable purchase method over the existing traditional methods. Thus, with this ever upcoming technology, ecommerce will continue to flourish globally and in due course become a key business strategy that needs to be implemented in order to prosper in the fast-growing market and keep abreast with your competitors.
Putting it simply, Ecommerce or Electronic Commerce means buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Before making any decision in business, it is worth taking into consideration the benefits, the company would reap on implementation of the new strategy of Ecommerce. So, the first and foremost thing that you need to know is whether your kind of business needs an ecommerce feature enabled website?
Ecommerce-is it for you?
The arrival of ecommerce websites has brought upheaval in the process of purchasing and selling goods. In this regard, it is important to consider websites like ebay, amazon etc. They have largely used the ecommerce procedure to make sales revenue.
So, whether you have an existing business or launching a brand new business, whether the volume of your business is large or small, you can always generate profit by demonstrating your products or services online, thereby acquiring a large amount of viewer exposure. In a nutshell, just any selling/buying business can profit by the ecommerce method.
So how can you earn BIGGER SALES REVENUE from an ecommerce website?
The benefits of having an ecommerce website are many.
Revealation – Your products showcased on your website, provides a huge exposure to the millions of visitors on the web. For example, if you have a computer showroom in a city, the visitors that you would get, will only be people from the city itself and possibly some from in and around the city.
Once in a while there will be visitors from places outside your city. Thus your product exposure is limited. On the contrary, if your products are demonstrated on a website, it connects you to the plentifull people who access the internet and looking for similar product as that of yours.
Time and Convenience – Time is one of the crucial factor in our lives now-a-days. A customer may find it difficult to visit your store physically everytime. On the other hand, if you have your store put on view on the Internet, anyone can pay a visit to your online store at their convenient time.
Your store shuts down at some point of time. But your e-store works 24X7 for you to bring in customers. Moreover, with all your product images and descriptions provided on your estore, the customer gets a detailed idea about your product and you do not have to squander time briefing the same thing to each and every visitor to your store. It further saves time per transaction. Any sales executive will definitely take some time to illustrate your product to each customer. Your ecommerce website does the same task to hundreds and thousands of your likely customers at the same time.
As all the information about your product are made available earlier to your customer’s visit, much less time is required to convey the benefits of your product to them, thereby making it easier to close the deal. Thus, many number of transactions can take place within a day. Presenting your Product through Demonstrations and illustrations, depicts a clear and thorough idea about your product without the effort of hiring and training personnel to do so.
Cost Effective - Sustaining a store in a primary locality is not highly expensive. On the contrary using the ecommerce is a whole lot easier technique of demonstrating and providing information about your products. Moreover promotion of your store and its products should be carried out from time-to-time. Web advertisement expenses are also less compared to print or other audio-visual medias, like radio or TV.
In an ecommerce website all that you need is a top-notch website design, that have a look and feel equally promising as your competitor, Search Engine Optimization to rank your website with your other competitors, and the annual hosting charges.
Largely speaking, there are no major hindrance of Ecommerce websites. With time, more and more people are realizing ecommerce as a viable purchase method over the existing traditional methods. Thus, with this ever upcoming technology, ecommerce will continue to flourish globally and in due course become a key business strategy that needs to be implemented in order to prosper in the fast-growing market and keep abreast with your competitors.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Computer Networking
Computer networking is a process of sharing data and shared resources between two or more connected computers. The shared resources can include printer, Fax modem, Hard disk, CD - DVD Rom, Database and the data files. A computer network can be divided into a small or local area network, a networking between computers in a building of a office (LAN), medium sized network (MAN), a network between two offices in a city and Wide network (WAN) a network between the computers, one is locally and the other can be thousands of miles away in any other country of the world.
WAN connectivity is achieved by a network device known as “Router”. The internet is the world’s largest WAN network, where millions of computers from all over the globe and connected with each other.
Networking is the practice of linking two or more computers or devices with each other. The connectivity can be wired or wireless. A computer network can be categorized in different ways, depends on the geographical area as mentioned above.
There are two main types of the computer network client-server and peer to peer. In the client server computing, a computer plays a major role known as server, where the files, data in the form of web pages, docs or spread sheet files, video, database & resources are placed.
All the other computers in the client/server network are called clients and they get the data from the server. In the peer to peer network all the computers play the same role and no computer act as a centralized server. In the major businesses around the world client-server network model is in major use.
A network topology defines the structure, design or layout of a network. There are different topologies like bus, ring, star, mesh, hybrid etc. The star topology is most commonly used network topology. In the star topology, all the computers in the network are connected with a centralized device such as hub or switch. Thus forms a star like structure. If the hubs/switch fails to work for any reason then all the connectivity and communication between the computers of a network will be halted.
In the network, a common communication language is used by the computers and the network devices and this language is known as protocols. The most commonly used and popular protocols on the internet and in the home and other networks is called TCP/IP. TCP/IP is not a singleprotocol but it is a suite of several protocols.
A network can be a wired or wireless and TCP/IP protocol can work both in types of network.
A data flow in a computer network can be divided into seven logical layers called OSI layersmodel that was developed by Intel and Xerox Corporation and was standardized by ISO.
1. Application layer
2. Presentation layer
3. Session layer
4. Transport layer
5. Network layer
6. Data Link layer
a. Media access control sub-layer
b. Logical link control sub-layer
7. Physical layer.
A network can be divided into different scales and ranges and it depends on the requirement of the network and the geographical location. Computer Network can be divided into Local Area Network, Personal Area Network, Campus Area Network, Wireless Local Area Network,Metropolitan Area Network and Wide Area Network.
There are several network connection methods like HomePNA, Power line communication, Ethernet and Wifi connection method.A network can also be categorized into several different types based on the services it provides like Server farms, Storage area networks, Value control networks, Value-Added networks,SOHO network, Wireless network and Jungle networks.
WAN connectivity is achieved by a network device known as “Router”. The internet is the world’s largest WAN network, where millions of computers from all over the globe and connected with each other.
Networking is the practice of linking two or more computers or devices with each other. The connectivity can be wired or wireless. A computer network can be categorized in different ways, depends on the geographical area as mentioned above.
There are two main types of the computer network client-server and peer to peer. In the client server computing, a computer plays a major role known as server, where the files, data in the form of web pages, docs or spread sheet files, video, database & resources are placed.
All the other computers in the client/server network are called clients and they get the data from the server. In the peer to peer network all the computers play the same role and no computer act as a centralized server. In the major businesses around the world client-server network model is in major use.
A network topology defines the structure, design or layout of a network. There are different topologies like bus, ring, star, mesh, hybrid etc. The star topology is most commonly used network topology. In the star topology, all the computers in the network are connected with a centralized device such as hub or switch. Thus forms a star like structure. If the hubs/switch fails to work for any reason then all the connectivity and communication between the computers of a network will be halted.
In the network, a common communication language is used by the computers and the network devices and this language is known as protocols. The most commonly used and popular protocols on the internet and in the home and other networks is called TCP/IP. TCP/IP is not a singleprotocol but it is a suite of several protocols.
A network can be a wired or wireless and TCP/IP protocol can work both in types of network.
A data flow in a computer network can be divided into seven logical layers called OSI layersmodel that was developed by Intel and Xerox Corporation and was standardized by ISO.
1. Application layer
2. Presentation layer
3. Session layer
4. Transport layer
5. Network layer
6. Data Link layer
a. Media access control sub-layer
b. Logical link control sub-layer
7. Physical layer.
A network can be divided into different scales and ranges and it depends on the requirement of the network and the geographical location. Computer Network can be divided into Local Area Network, Personal Area Network, Campus Area Network, Wireless Local Area Network,Metropolitan Area Network and Wide Area Network.
There are several network connection methods like HomePNA, Power line communication, Ethernet and Wifi connection method.A network can also be categorized into several different types based on the services it provides like Server farms, Storage area networks, Value control networks, Value-Added networks,SOHO network, Wireless network and Jungle networks.
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