MAC address security

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Aug 19, 2010
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I'm wondering if my wifi is secure if someone perhaps has my Ethernet ID/MAC address. I use wpa encryption with a big password? Thanks
 
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Auch, France
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iMac 27" C2D 8Gb, MBP I5, 2010 15" HD 4Gb, MacMini Server C2D, 4Gb Snow Leopard everywhere
Firstly, the MAC address would only prevent someone logging in if they had the correct user/password.

Why not 'hide' the network (Disactivate the SSID broadcast) then only people who actually know the name of the network would be able to 'see' it?
 
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Rocky Mountain High, Colorado
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1.8 GHz i7 MBA 11" OSX 10.8.2
Hiding the network does little to stop someone from finding your network. Simple tools like istumbler will discover hidden network names
http://www.istumbler.net/
Plus hiding the SSID can cause wifi issues - I've seen you have to manually reattach to networks every time you walk away from a hidden network. I used to hide my network but it became a PITA - and as I said it really didn't provide any extra security so I ended up broadcasting the SSID always.

Also Mac Address filtering is easily spoofed. So if someone has a MAC ID that is valid for a network - one can easily spoof the ID on their computer to try to log on.

With WPA you have pretty good protection. A big password isn't a good password. Size matters, but so does random characters. You want random upper case, lower case, numbers and characters. A big phrase where you put in random characters - or a generated password you can hand out
generate password online - Google Search
 

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