Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 17: Ten FAQs about Wireless Home Networks
except those with certain characteristics that you identify. (These types
of data packets can be let through to your gaming server.) We talk a great
deal about this topic in Chapter 11, in the section about dealing with port
forwarding, so be sure to read up on that before tinkering with your router
configuration.
If this process is too complex to pull off with your present router, consider
just setting up a demilitarized zone (DMZ) for your gaming application, where
your gaming console or PC sits fairly open to the Internet. (We discuss setting
up a DMZ in Chapter 11.) This setup isn’t a preferred one, however, for security
reasons, and we recommend that you try to get port forwarding to work.
Our esteemed tech editor has a great suggestion if you’re having issues with
port forwarding: a Web site called www.portforward.com. Check it out!
Q: My videoconferencing application doesn’t work. What do I do?
In some ways, videoconferencing is its own animal in its own world.
Videoconferencing has its own set of standards that it follows; typically has
specialized hardware and software; and, until recently, has required special
telephone lines to work.
The success of the Internet and its related protocols has opened up videoconferencing
to the mass market with IP standards-based Web cameras and
other software-based systems becoming popular.
Still, if you have installed a router with the appropriate protection from the
Internet bad guys, videoconferencing can be problematic for all the same reasons
as in gaming, which we mention in the preceding section. You need to
have packets coming into your application just as much as you’re sending
packets out to someone else.
Wait a minute. You may be thinking “Data packets come into my machine all
the time (like when I download Web pages), so what are you saying?” Well,
those packets are requested, and the router in your AP (or your separate
router, if that’s how your network is set up) knows that they’re coming and
lets them through. Videoconferencing packets are often unrequested, which
makes the whole getting-through-the-router thing a bit tougher.
As such, the answer is the same as with gaming. You need to open ports in
your router (called port forwarding) or set up your video application in a
DMZ. Again, Chapter 11 can be a world of help here.
Q: How do I secure my network from hackers?
Nothing is totally secure from anything. The adage “Where there’s a will,
there’s a way” tends to govern most discussions about someone hacking into
your LAN. We tend to fall back on this one instead: Unless you have some
major, supersecret hidden trove of something on your LAN that many people
would simply kill to have access to, the chances of a hacker spending a great
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