I am about to get wireless Internet. In order to make my system more secure, is it possible to shield the access point? I will be placing the router on a shelf in my home office. Can I put something on the back of the shelf to disrupt the signal? For instance, would aluminum foil block the wireless signal, or would it act as an antenna?

Although wireless access points are omni directional and susceptible to blockage and interference by some building materials, relying upon anything other than encryption to protect your system is largely futile.

The radio waves that carry your wireless signals can travel quite far. Even though you may not be able to connect to your access point, someone else may still be able to receive your signals and decipher your traffic. Imagine someone walking at night with a flashlight. He can only see so far as he walks along, yet others hidden out of range of the flashlight can easily see him. The same is true of wireless radio signals.

There are some steps you can take to minimize the likelihood of someone eaves dropping on your network. First, see if your wireless access point has a power setting. This will help restrict how far your signal is sent, though you’ll want to experiment with this setting because it can potentially make it difficult for you to connect to your access point. In addition, restricting signal strength can also limit the speed of your access point.

By far, the best way to protect yourself from people either eavesdropping on your wireless system or leeching off your Internet connection is to use wireless encryption. If you’re purchasing a new wireless system, be sure that it supports the WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) protocol. WPA comes in two variants: WPA and WPA2.

WPA encrypts all the traffic between your computers and the wireless access point, as well as restricting who can connect to the access point.

If you’re using an older system that doesn’t support WPA, your task is a bit more difficult. WEP (Wired Equivalent Protection) was the original encryption system for wireless networks, but it has been widely circumvented by hackers due to flaws in its basic design. However, implementing WEP protection is better than having no protection at all. Although the tools to circumvent WEP are easy to use and widespread, not everyone knows about them. And the sad truth is that there are thousands of access points across the country that are completely unprotected. With unprotected access points readily available, hackers may bypass your system for the easier targets.

[tags]WPA, WEP[/tags]