suspicious school accomdation manager

i am moving into a school accomodation where dorm manager personally provides wireless internet access with a cheap wireless router something like, Belkin... not too sure.

i am very suspicious of his motives and worried the manager can easily access anyones computers. i mean why would he would spend his dimes on internet access for students. and he use to work in IT industry !!!

which is why i need you guys help !

plz tell me what i need on my centrino laptop ?

another router ?? software



plz help

thanks

 

Hi Mature Student,
Just treat it as you would any publicly accessable wireless network. Use comon sense when using laptops or handhelds on wireless networks. Never keep personal info(Credit card, bank account numbers, name,Address'(s), S.S numbers) on mobile devices as they can be easy targets for thiefs and if you make a mistake and you are hacked or the device is stolen there will not be any damaging info that can be used. As part of my job I have to travel alot I have my laptop setup with a good firewall and antiivirus,PG3.2,wormguard,spybot-SD,and some odds and ends software. I use a layered defence of software and so far this has worked well for me. I don't want to sound like an ad for one companys software over the others but this configuration has caught quite a few attempts(pinged and stopped by one of the first 4 programs). Hope this Helps

 

Mature_student,

Unless you use an anonymising proxy that encrypts the data leaving your computer (examples including JAP and Tor - see Setting up Tor/Proxomitron+SocksCap for setup recommendations and the (long) Don't Fear Internet Anonymity Tools thread for a general discussion) anything you do online can be observed - be it by your ISP (many now have to log details including websites you visit) or any network administrator whose connections you use. Using such anonymisers will prevent such eavesdropping (and even the TLA agencies would likely find it difficult) but will result a more complex setup and slower connections - you need to decide if your privacy is worth this.

However your dorm manager's intentions may be benign - if he is getting a free connection (or paying for his own access) then there is little to no cost for him in allowing others to share it (though he may configure his router to give his own traffic priority... ). Also with wireless networking, it does make sense to share one router since multiple ones will result in interference and poorer performance for everyone.

 

Can this work through a public wireless system? Or does it have to be setup within a personal network? I just glanced through the links and will read in full shortly as it looks an interesting setup. Most public wireless setups are wide open and seeing as the person asking the question is a student I couldn't see him/her limiting themself to a secure home network and not sitting and surfing/studying at the local coffee shop ect...

 

Whether the network is public or private should make no difference - the only things that can cause problems are restrictive firewalls (JAP uses ports 6543 and 6544 while Tor should be able to function via HTTP and HTTPS which virtually all firewalls should allow, though this will likely slow it down further) and application proxy servers (typically found in corporate or school networks where you have to supply a username/password to be able to connect through them to the Internet).

 

thanks for your replies

thing is i have few websites that makes good money - well... pocket money.

and i have many projects i am working on.


the last thing i want is him lurking my projects and affiliate accounts !

would he be able to know things like my username/password for those affiliate/email/FTP accounts cos that will be my worst nightmare !


Thanks.

 

anyone please ?

 

If you run a firewall on your system, that should could keep others on the LAN from trying to snoop at files on your system.

Are you connecting by wireless? If so, are you using encryption (WPA) to prevent easy/casual evesdropping?

The Admin of the router would have access to traffic logs, but not content. If someone was to put a system between the router and the ISP they may be in a position to monitor content.

Regards,

CrazyM