Tech Thursday: Hurry to the Door – It Might Be the FBI

If you have not heard this story about a mistaken FBI Porn Raid, and if you have Wi-Fi then you should read on about privacy risks with your wireless network.

What happened? It goes like this. This fellow left his home Wi-Fi network unprotected, and a really bad neighbor piggy-backed on his "free" wireless network to visit thousands of child pornography images.

Lock your wireless network down. WEP (wired equivalent privacy) encryption has as many holes as a dozen donuts, and can be cracked in a matter of seconds, but even turning on such weak protection is better than nothing.

You should use, when possible, WPA or WPA-2 encryption. With most home and small offices wireless routers, simply log in to the Admin console, enabling the encryption, and setting a password. Get those router directions out of the box or visit the vendors website and read how to begin if needed.

Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to figure out how to log into the admin console for your Wi-Fi router and turn on encryption to prevent unauthorized piggy-backing. If you don't, the next doorbell sounds might not be that guy with a package wearing those brown shorts.