Ars Technica put up a quality summary of wireless network security measures, including a debunking of those measures without value (e.g., making it so that your network doesn’t broadcast its name–the SSID). Worth a read. High-level summary is: you should turn on a password, even if the outdated WEP standard, because that’s better than no protection. Any of the flavors of WPA, the latest standard, are pretty good. And Nintendo continues its losing streak with respect to online features in hardware and games, because the DS only supports the WEP protocol, so you’d have to take your wireless security down to WEP to support the DS as lowest common denominator.
On the general topic of wireless networks, I had a brush with the general annoyance that is tech trouble shooting. I was updating Vanessa’s WiFi network to change the SSID from “dlink” and to add a password. Somehow this screwed up the IP address assignment process done in conjunction with the Comcast cable modem. After exhausting my toolbox of techniques with no luck, I had to turn to Comcast for assistance. Their first step: unplug the power cord from both the router and the cable modem, then power back up the cable modem and then the router, and finally restart your computer. Bingo, this worked. I had done these steps in a different sequence with no success during my troubleshooting attempts. Oh well, just glad “Little Fury Things” net is working now.