I-O Data WN-G54/R4 Router Makes Getting Around Your Obtuse Home Security Very Easy

For the most part a router is a router is a router. Sure they offer some special features like QoS or whatnot, but for the majority of people out there they just need the basics. Get my machines to all have access to the net and protect them via a built in firewall from any of those 'bad' people out there. Most people don't care about all the fancy things most modern routers can do these days. We aren't those people :) We are always very protective of our home network and we make sure that our wireless router has the most secure setup possible.

We will be the first to admit that for the most part what we have setup here is overkill as the chances that someone would actively try and hack our network is pretty slim( that wasn't a challenge!! ), but why take the chance right. So we made sure to use WPA2 with a very secure passphrase among other tactics. The problem comes from certain devices that we have around the house that want to use the wireless network to get access to remote servers and the Internet in general. Well they aren't designed to work with WPA, they will only talk to a network secured with WEP or sometimes only if you are wide open. Well there is no way that we are going to lower our security just so a few devices can get access to the Internet. So we have had to deal with the fact that they just would not be able to connect.

One device that hasn't been able to access the net that makes us very sad had been our Nintendo DS. They had come out and said that it would only work via WEP and would always be that way. We were very sad since there are a lot of fun things you can do with the DS online that we figured we would never have the chance to do. Well along comes the WN-G54 with a solution to that problem.

Basically their router, which is the standard 10/100, 802.11b/g, has two modes to it. The first mode is your very secure network for your home machines and whatnot. The second mode is an insecure passthrough mode that allows certain devices to bypass your internal security and hop right on the net. This way you can keep the majority of your network in secure mode while granting special permissions to the devices that can't deal with the multiple layers of security. This may be a great solution for people like us that are unwilling to compromise our security so that a few of our devices can get access to the outside world.

We are going to try and get one for our office and see how it works. We'll be sure to let you know.

via engadget

November 2, 2007

I-O Data WN-G54/R4 Router Makes Getting Around Your Obtuse Home Security Very Easy