There are several local WI-FI router signals available to access from our house. I’m concerned that my children have wide open access when using their school laptops. I’ve secured our internal (paid for) access to certain times and sites, encryption, etc. But many neighbors apparently are not aware or have not implemented any security. Is there a way (either via new software or hardware) that I can block or jam the incoming signals? — Joe Veltri
When I wrote about “jamming” or otherwise blocking Wi-Fi signals in your own business or home, I received several e-mails saying that what I wrote was illegal. The Wi-Fi spectrum is unlicensed and he/she with the best signal wins. Having said that, there are several options that you can consider to help keep your children’s computers away from those other networks.
One thing to do, if you haven’t already done it, is to upgrade the OS on the computers to XP Professional. XP Professional has additional security options that can help prevent your kids from switching to alternate Wi-Fi SSIDs and getting into sites they shouldn’t. However, even with XP Home, you may have some options. If XP Media Center is installed, I don’t think that you will have much luck to do any time of restrictions since Media Center is pretty brain dead in that respect.
There are several software options that you can look into, including Mobile Netswitch and IPSwitcher. They may be easier to set up than digging into Group or local security policies to prevent the kids from changing to other SSIDs.
You can also look at enhancing the wireless signal so that your wireless signal is loud enough drown out the other wireless access points in the neighborhood. This can be done in different ways, depending on the access point/router. You may be able to switch out the antennas that came with the unit to higher gain ones that do a better job at saturating your home with wireless. Also check if there is a third-party or open-source firmware package that allows the access point to run at higher power than what the manufacturer ships it with. By adding some reflectors that you can make yourself, you can direct the signals coming from your access points to cover just your home and not the whole neighborhood. You can find out more about how to do this here. This is just one idea of directing the signal from your access point to where you want it. There is also the option of deploying additional access points within the home as another method of saturating the designated area with primarily your wireless SSID.
