Concerns about wireless

[fguy64]

Greetings. I live in a house with several other people, and we all connect to a single ADSL router, mostly via wireless.

It occurred to me as one of my roommates was doing WindowsUpdate, "damn. 50 MB of service pack 3 just went straight through my thorax..

I'm only slightly facetious, I think it's a serious issue worth thinking about. I wish I understood the technology better. What with cellular phones, bluetooth, iphones, net connected ipods, satellite TV & radio, wireless internet in restaurants bars and hotels, not to mention plain old AM/FM radio, I'm starting to have concerns about the affect that all these transmissions can have on my health.

Does anyone else share these concerns?

 

[adamparkzer]

I'm near confident that the wireless internet issue won't have much of an affect on your health. There are invisible waves everywhere, not only inside your house where there is wireless internet.

The problem with the cell phones that made the hype is that they use microwaves, similar to your microwave. By pressing them up against your ear for long periods of time while they're operating and sending transmissions to the cellular tower, you're consistently exposing yourself to a stream of microwaves that could go through your brain and cause damage.

I'm not really that concerned about it, I just use a Bluetooth ear set to reduce the amount of direct microwave contact and resort to instant messaging instead of talking on the phone.

 

[Smith6612]

The wireless transmissions that come from these devices shouldn't be affecting your health. I sit near many wireless devices on a regular basis (pretty much 24/7) and I'm perfectly healthy. Really, if you were to boost the power of all of those devices to equate that of the inside of a running Microwave or a TV tower, then sure after a while not only will the FCC come after you, but your health would be affected from the increased amount of radiation (you'd probably fry yourself and your home as well if everything runs at microwave levels lol). But yet again I may be wrong. Some people react to things like these easilly from what they say, and that's why sometimes you see people walking around with tin foil hats if you have ever seen these..

Also is there anything wrong with 50MB? If your ISP is capping get a rid of them and tell them you're shutting off due to capping. Smack the ISPs where it hurts since I'm such and tired of these capping ordeals and companies not wanting to fix up their stuff. Sorry if I sound a bit crabby on this issue lol.

 

[fguy64]

Yah, I can't really say that there is anything wrong, nor can I say that there is nothing to worry about. Perhaps we cannot say that this stuff is bad for your health, but at the same time I don't know that we can say that this stuff has absolutely no affect on you, either.

 

[Zangetsu]

well i dont have many conserns about wireless the only thing im worried about is the security of those kinds of devices hackers are able to hack nearly every thing these days

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

In my school there is 30 - 40 routers around us, and I have been there for 1 year. Never felt like anything is wrong/happened.

 

[fguy64]

In my school there is 30 - 40 routers around us, and I have been there for 1 year. Never felt like anything is wrong/happened.

duly noted vigge, but things can effect you in subtle ways, or take a long time for effects to show. So your point about being around 40 routers for a year while valid is hardly proof that there is no problem.

 

[ichwar]

It's the ultra violet rays that really harm us. Wifi I believe is infrared and infrared has to be EXTREMELY powerful to have any noticeable effect on our health. A microwave is an example of this. But wifi is not nearly as powerful as a microwave.

 

[Smith6612]

It's the ultra violet rays that really harm us. Wifi I believe is infrared and infrared has to be EXTREMELY powerful to have any noticeable effect on our health. A microwave is an example of this. But wifi is not nearly as powerful as a microwave.

Wi-Fi is in the radio spectrum. It's not infrared at all. I think you're thinking about those infrared ports that were on oldere laptops that ran at 28.8kbps link speeds. Now that is infrared.

As per the hacker comment, if you're running a Wi-Fi router, you should be using WPA2 TKIP + AES. At the bare minimum WPA, but WPA2 is suggested. WEP these days can be cracked within seconds to a minute using some small programs.

 

[ichwar]

Wi-Fi is in the radio spectrum. It's not infrared at all.

by infrared, I mean just any frequency below the lowest visible red.

 

[Smith6612]

by infrared, I mean just any frequency below the lowest visible red.

That'd explain it them I thought you were going by the spectrum.

 

[ichwar]

I know, I should of made it clear that I wasn't thinking about conventional spectrum names at the time of that post. sorry. :biggrin:

 

[farscapeone]

50 MB of service pack 3 just went straight through my thorax..

Well, that's a scary thought :biggrin:

 

[nuccathewarri0r]

I don't think wireless connections would be UVs unless you gotten sun burn from it.....:tongue:

Wireless mostly uses satelites to reflect signals off of it. I think the spammer is screwy looey:nuts:

 

[fguy64]

.....

As per the hacker comment, if you're running a Wi-Fi router, you should be using WPA2 TKIP + AES. At the bare minimum WPA, but WPA2 is suggested. WEP these days can be cracked within seconds to a minute using some small programs.

Sorry, Is that encryption?, or just to prevent unauthorized connection to the router?

What about wireless MAC filter?

 

[ichwar]

both.

 

[fguy64]

both.

Any significant impact on performance by using this kind of encryption? Thanks.

 

[Smith6612]

MAC filtering is just useless unless you keep your access key in a wide open place. It doesn't take very long to spoof a MAC address (under a minute to spoof it) once someone obtains access to the security, but it is a nice extra layer of defense. There are some things that can affect the performance of the wireless though. This includes the client device's CPU power and link rate, as well as the router's CPU power.

WPA TKIP uses the least amount of CPU, and is the most supported form out there. It has been to date cracked, but even if someone does manage to crack it, it would only give them a minute or two before they're locked out. Only way to fully crack this is with Brute Force (which can, using a key generator take a PC from today over 1,000 years as a guess to crack with a very strong key).

WPA AES is like WPA TKIP however it is a stronger form of encryption (supposably NSA grade) and has not been cracked yet, however it does have less overhead on it but it uses more CPU power on your devices and router.

WPA TKIP + AES is basically the most secure WPA mode out there. It uses the most CPU but also has fairly light traces of overhead.

WPA2 TKIP is a bit heavier than WPA TKIP. It uses a bit more CPU and has a bit more overhead.

WPA2 AES uses even more CPU but has a little more overhead.

WPA2 TKIP + AES has the most CPU usage (mobile devices would lock up if they run less than 300Mhz on their processors) but it has moderate CPU usage.

Basically use whatever is the most secure, but what also gives you the best performance over a long duration. WEP these days is just asking for trouble (it's just like having your AP wide open. All WEP is good for is keeping the unknowing out, but it does let the "want to break in" people get in quite easilly.)

 

[whitebus]

the sun regularly emits far more dangerous waves than anything we can cook up, but the inverse square law helps us a bit there. ...and then there's the van allen belt.
some theories are that it is the radiation that causes the mutations that allow species to evolve. so if you would like to evolve, go ahead and download those windows updates all you can.

 

[fguy64]

heh heh whitebus, maybe I'll place the router under my chair.

Thanks to smith6612 for an informative reply.