WLAN Security & Direction of Router

[hyedipin]

I don't know if you guys will be able to help me with this issue.

I am running a small Public WLAN in my house, with about three floors and surrounding area there are about 7 users.

In order to check the security & run several tests, I just need to find out if there are several tools to help me achieve it.

1) S/W to check the location or direction of the Access Point I am connected to. There are about 4 access points, however once connected (with settings) a regular user would not be able to see which one they are connected to, they can login directly to router, so I would need to know which way is the router and about how far I am from it?

2) Check the other connected PCs, Normally all PC's & Laptops are connected to the router/a.p. And I would have to check if one laptop can see the other one, and check if they can access each others' files. Normally they cannot see each other from networkneighborhood or net view prompt. So I may need a tool to just check the range & ports and try to see anything is open.

3) Let's say my next door neighbor accessed my WLAN and just started using my connection. Are there any laws yet to prosecute people stealing internet access or bandwidth? Maybe there are some limits to it, let's say I just let my WLAN as it is, and did not take ANY security measures, and someone accessed my network, as compared to me taking ALL security measures and someone breaking into it and using my internet. It would be like finder's keepers versus breaking in to a grocery store.



Thanks in advance.
I am planning to post same subject over several forums, let's see what people have to say .

[Jorgen]

I don't really understand your questions. A transmitter will transmit in all directions. Whether the computers can see eachother depends on the settings in the firewalls, whether some are XP and some W9X ...

Rather than sue the neighbour (how are you going to prove that he connects?), you should make the system reasonably secure: Get a router that supports at least WEP encryption (or better), that can prevent the SSID from showing and that limits access to specific MAC addresses and which has a decent firewall. I use this DSL gateway http://www.lgnetwork.com/lgnetwork/download/download.jsp?real_upload_path=/src1/tomcat/webapps/lgnetwork/upfiles/ptFile/LWG5400DSL.pdf&system_filename=LWG5400DSL.pdf but there are many other ones. You could also switch off DHCP and fix the IP addresses for a bit of extra security.

Jorgen

[hyedipin]

I am not talking about "seeing" each other, of course with a minimal setting change you can easily hide the computer, even if net view doesn't list the other computers you can very easily go into them by just browsing their IP directly into a shared folder. If you remember there was r3x s/w which was later bought by another company and made publically available..

Anyway..

About the direction, other than my own access points, I also want to know Which way the A/P or router is at.. maybe some sort of tester or sniffer that can determine the location based on distance..