How do I hide my router's password? Windows 7 'Starter'__

many higher end routers will mask both the admin password for access to the

router and the WPA2 security key with *** after they are setup. but this won't

stop anyone from using wired Ethernet from plugging in to an available port.

a high end router would let you lock down access by mac address.

However, I can't speak to how you should control your son and his friends from

hacking into whatever security you set up.

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:23:43 +0000, Barkleyfan wrote:

>For me, the issue is that my son can see the password, and put it in his itouch, Wii, phone, or share it with his friends fortheir devices. Next thing I know I have a letter from my ISP that they've cut my service because of illegally downloaded movies and music. So my option is to set up a separate admin account and be forced to PW protect it? I don'twant to log in every time I fire up my PC. This seems a bit regressive in security protocols.

Barb Bowman

http://www.digitalmediaphile.com

For me, the issue is that my son can see the password, and put it in his itouch, Wii, phone, or share it with his friends fortheirdevices. Next thing I know I have a letter from my ISP that they've cut my service because of illegally downloaded movies and music. So my option is to set up a separate admin account and be forced to PW protect it? I don'twantto log in every time I fire up my PC. This seems a bit regressive in security protocols.

I don't understand how revealing a password to a PC's superuser is a security flaw.  Did you know that Windows Vista and Windows 7 offer the same "flaw" to 56K dial-up users as well?  It's true: It's been there, in the OS, for nigh on four years now.

The wisdom of doing so is clearly up for debate, but the feature neither adds nor compromises a properly managed PC's or network's security.  Anyone with administrator rights on a wirelessly-connected PC can learn its connection keys trivially, whether through a built-in tool such as this feature or a third-party tool found by a trivial Web search.

It is the network administrator's responsibility to regulate which systems can access his network, when, and how, but that responsibility does not extend to those systems' users.  It's the system administrators of each system who are responsible for regulating which users can access those systems and regulating which networks their users can connect to.  In most companies, those two responsibilities are carried by the same person or the same department, but they are separate responsibilities.  In homes, those responsibilities should be carried by the heads of household or a single trusted family member, but through user ignorance the responsibility of system administration, separate from network administration, often falls to the primary users instead.

When you allow a system to connect to your network, wirelessly or otherwise, you must trust that the system's administrator will not compromise the security of your network by disclosing any network connection credentials.  The only way you can do this, if you don't trust that system's users, is to prevent any of them from being that system's administrators.

In a home network scenario where you're that network's administrator, the best way is exactly according to the post accepted as the answer: Become the system's administrator, and make all its other users limited account users.

And occasionally change the wireless network's password, as should be done with any password.

Edit:

A reasonably secure alternative, in the case of outside contractors or consultants needing access to your network from their own wireless-enabled laptops, is to create a separate wireless network connected via ethernet to your main network, for which a separate wireless key is required for access.  Just monitor this separate wireless segment for abuse, and you can take action to curb or remove potential abuse by the outsiders without affecting the operation of your internal network, and without anyone outside needing to learn your inside's wireless credentials.

Windows Genuine Advantage disadvantaged my genuine Windows. Posted from genuine Ubuntu.

I'm at a loss as to how this question has generated responses along the lines of dealing with the issue by securing the laptop administrative account.  This doesn't solve the issue at all.

As mentioned above, if you have a situation on a small business network where you have a mixture of employees and consultants and use a wireless network you are vulnerable.  Since it's typically a business policy that consultants provide their own laptops, they will most likely have administrative access to their laptops or an administrator of their company will.

One concerned about security should see the importance of limiting the exposure of credentialed information whether that be user credentials or network credentials.  I can understand providing the option to show characters when created the connection but it should never never never be displayed once it is saved. 

It would appear to me that this should be considered a bug, a security flaw that Microsoft needs to resolve.