Protecting My Wireless Network

[slim150]

Hey everyone, I live in an apartment complex in a college town, and I can always view like 5 different wireless networks at a time. Sometimes my internet lags and I'm afraid that some bozo is connecting to my connection instead. I was wondering if there was a way to figure out if other people are, or better yet to allow only computers that i want access to the network, like some sort of password protection. Thank you.

[4play]

wireless networks should have a basic form of encryption here (http://www.practicallynetworked.com/support/wireless_encrypt.htm)

and airsnare (http://home.comcast.net/~jay.deboer/airsnare/) should be pretty handy at checking who is using your network.

[vivitron 15]

i believe a well-configed router will allow you to set the mac adds of who can connect

[4play]

could you not sniff the network and use a trusted mac adress on the network to connect to it. ;)

you would have to wait for the machine to be switched off.