SD PC Support Blog! May 19th, 2012

This blog provides instructions on how to “reset” your router. This is a practice that nearly all ISP’s suggest as a first step for repairing a down network connection. That being said, San Diego PC Support does not suggest you perform, nor take any responsibilities for any actions you take in attempting to repair anything! If you do not feel comfortable with this, we would be glad to help you. A list of our services can be found here: http://www.sandiegopcsupport.com/services

Router Reset Instructions

Step 1)      Turn off your computer.

Step 2)      Unplug your cable modem.

Step 3)      Plug your router back in and hit and hold the small reset button.  Lights should blink after a while.  Release the button when you see this.

Step 4)      Wait till the router reboots.  Typically this takes a few minutes.

Step 5)      Plug your modem back in.

Step 6)      Turn your computer back on.

Step 7)      Open your web browser and check your connection.

This blog provides instructions on how to “hard reset” your cable modem. This is a practice that nearly all ISP’s suggest as a first step for repairing a down cable modem. That being said, San Diego PC Support does not suggest you perform, nor take any responsibilities for any actions you take in attempting to repair anything! If you do not feel comfortable with this, we would be glad to help you. A list of our services can be found here: http://www.sandiegopcsupport.com/services

Hard Reset Instructions

1)      Turn off your computer.

2)      Unplug your cable modem.

3)      Plug your cable modem back in

4)      Hit and hold the small reset button. This button is typically located on the back of the modem.  After about 30 seconds lights should blink.  Release the button when you see this.

5)      Wait for the modem to reboots.  Typically this takes a few minutes.

6)      Turn your computer back on.

7)      Open your web browser and check your connection.

The fact of the matter is that Home networking Setup and wireless networking Setup has become extremely popular.  This popularity has lead to more and more internet fraud than ever before and has affected millions of lives.  Because of this jump in internet fraud security, proper network setup has become the number one priority for the majority of home and business users.  Almost everyone knows now that without some type of internet encryption you leave yourself susceptible to all type of internet fraud such as credit card fraud and even spamming your email contacts.

Encryption is a process that takes information and transforms it into a different form that is unable to read by anyone who does not have the encryption code. Depending on the type of encryption, information can be displayed as various numbers, letters, or symbols.  We will show examples of the different types of encryptions currently used in network setups.

WEP encryption

WEP encryption is probably the weakest type of encryption but is offered by nearly every wireless router and used in a lot of novice network setup users.  It is relatively easy to crack the WEP key using programs that can brute force the key or by analyzing the packets sent through the network.  A WEP key consists of two parts; a shared key which is the same on every computer in the network and an IV (initilization vector) which is variable. The IV is rather short for WEP, just 24 bits. It therefore takes a relatively short time before the same IV is used over and over again. On a busy network an attacker could analyze the similarities between these packets and discover their shared value.  In some cases one can concluded that this shared value is the network key.  San Diego PC Support doesn’t recommend this type of encryption for home or business network setup. 

WPA encryption

WPA gives you a little more protection than WEP but still is not that secure for setting up a network.  WPA’s Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) periodically changes the key that is used to encrypt data, making it harder for attackers to find similarities between packets. TKIP greatly improves wireless network security but still isn’t the best choice.  This is a better choice for a network setup but not the best.

WPA2 encryption

WPA2 is an upgrade from WPA.  It provides enterprise and consumer Wi-Fi users with a high level of security that only authorized users can access their wireless networks. Based on the IEEE 802.11i standard, WPA2 provides government grade security by implementing the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) FIPS 140-2 compliant AES encryption algorithm and 802.1x-based authentication.  In most cases San Diego PC Support’s Network Setup uses this type of encryption.  We find that this type of security gives your network the most protection.