172 replies to this topic

[sobank]

commandos was hell of a game. played all of its parts. Games are not only of high spec but also more interactive and has faster pace and better controls in general. oh and more money hungry And every here and there you see something really remarkable. Console has its own advantages but every tom d|ck and harry is there and ruins the online gaming. I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw anything fun like commandos on it?

any ways off to work. c ya later.

[Simpleton]

Well, it is related to computers. so here goes:

FAIL: NASA sold Space Shuttle PCs without wiping secret data
For sale, used computer packed full of secret NASA Space Shuttle data. As part of a plan to securely end the Space Shuttle program, NASA is getting rid of old computers. However, NASA officials failed to delete sensitive data on PCs and hard drives before selling the equipment. The Office of Inspector General found "serious" security breaches at NASA centers in Florida, Virginia, Texas and California.

NASA is full of very bright minds, so how did it manage to make such a noob mistake of selling PCs without wiping the hard drives? An audit [PDF] found 10 of 14 computers that failed tests to ascertain they'd been wiped properly. One computer that was to be sold still contained sensitive Space Shuttle data, which was subject to export control by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

All electronic storage media is supposed to be wiped of data "to the degree that there is reasonable assurance that the data cannot be retrieved or reconstructed," the audit stated. NASA approved software for sanitizing hard drives include DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke), Secure Erase, and WipeDrive/WipeDrive Pro. Contractors in charge of deleting sensitive information used DBAN and Active@KillDisk - which is not NASA approved at Johnson's disposition center. Ames used BCwipe, which is DOD compliant, but not NASA approved. USA used Symantec DateGone which is not approved by NASA, DOD or NSA.

At Kennedy, another contractor, Abacus Technology Corporation, attempts to recover data from digitally sanitized PCs. If data is recovered, the outside of the computer is marked in large red letters as FAIL. Auditors found that IT managers weren't notified when a drive failed or wasn't wiped free of data at all. Some officials at NASA facilities didn't account for or track hard drives. Additionally, the auditors were not at all pleased with the lack of verification testing that drives were properly sanitized of sensitive data.

Pallets, each filled with about 44 old PCs, were also found in the recycling facility with NASA stickers and IP addresses still attached to the cases. Auditors wrote, "Release of NASA Internet Protocol addresses is a potential security weakness because these addresses could provide a hacker a means to gain unauthorized access to NASA's internal network. Knowing a specific Internet Protocol address allows a hacker to target a particular computer, test the system for vulnerabilities, and possibly load malicious software programs or access information on the computer or network."

Hard drives were missing from Langley Research Center in Virginia and from Kennedy. Some of those hard drives from Kennedy were later found inside a dumpster that was accessible to the public, the audit says.

All in the all, the report determined that NASA protocols to correctly sanitize data were not being followed at Kennedy and Johnson space centers and at Ames and Langley research centers. The auditors were not happy with the CIO who "stated that NASA's policies would be updated and a new handbook created by the third quarter of fiscal year 2011." The audit, prepared by NASA's Inspector General, covered a 12-month period starting in June 2009.

With all the WikiLeaks drama and the government demanding the return of sensitive documents and information, this blunder is just pitiful. It would seem as if this failure to wipe sensitive data would leave NASA and the government red-faced.

NASA sold computers with sensitive data, report says
Updated at: 1240 PST, Sunday, December 12, 2010
NASA sold computers with sensitive data, report says CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA failed to delete sensitive data on computers and hard drives before selling the equipment as part of its plan to end the Space Shuttle program, an audit released on Tuesday shows.

NASA is getting rid of thousands of surplus items as it prepares to end the space shuttle program next year.

The Office of Inspector General found what it termed "serious" security breaches at NASA centers in Florida, Texas, California and Virginia.

"Our review found serious breaches in NASA's IT (information technology) security practices that could lead to the improper release of sensitive information related to the Space Shuttle and other NASA programs," NASA Inspector General Paul Martin said in a statement.

"NASA needs to take coordinated and forceful actions to address this problem."

The report cites 14 computers from the Kennedy Space Center that failed tests to determine if they were sanitized of sensitive information, 10 of which already had been released to the public.

It also found that hard drives were missing from Kennedy and from the Langley Research Center in Virginia. Some of the Kennedy hard drives were later found inside a dumpster, where they were being stored before sale, that was accessible to the public, the audit says.

Investigators also found several pallets of computers being prepared for sale that were marked with NASA Internet Protocol addresses, which the repo

[sobank]

well in that case, this is also related to PC
http://www.collegehu...m/video:1944668

[Magnus]

FBI Alleged To Have Backdoored OpenBSD's IPSEC Stack
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 14, @07:36PM

Aggrajag and Mortimer.CA, among others, wrote to inform us that Theo de Raadt has made public an email sent to him by Gregory Perry, who worked on the OpenBSD crypto framework a decade ago. The claim is that the FBI paid contractors to insert backdoors into OpenBSD's IPSEC stack. Mr. Perry is coming forward now that his NDA with the FBI has expired. The code was originally added ten years ago, and over that time has changed quite a bit, "so it is unclear what the true impact of these allegations are" says Mr. de Raadt. He added: "Since we had the first IPSEC stack available for free, large parts of the code are now found in many other projects/products." (Freeswan and Openswan are not based on this code.)

http://bsd.slashdot....10/12/15/004235

********************************************************************************
*************
List: openbsd-tech
Subject: Allegations regarding OpenBSD IPSEC
From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt () cvs ! openbsd ! org>
Date: 2010-12-14 22:24:39
Message-ID: 201012142224.oBEMOdWM031222 () cvs ! openbsd ! org
[Download message RAW]

I have received a mail regarding the early development of the OpenBSD
IPSEC stack. It is alleged that some ex-developers (and the company
they worked for) accepted US government money to put backdoors into
our network stack, in particular the IPSEC stack. Around 2000-2001.

Since we had the first IPSEC stack available for free, large parts of
the code are now found in many other projects/products. Over 10
years, the IPSEC code has gone through many changes and fixes, so it
is unclear what the true impact of these allegations are.

The mail came in privately from a person I have not talked to for
nearly 10 years. I refuse to become part of such a conspiracy, and
will not be talking to Gregory Perry about this. Therefore I am
making it public so that
(a) those who use the code can audit it for these problems,
(b) those that are angry at the story can take other actions,
© if it is not true, those who are being accused can defend themselves.

Of course I don't like it when my private mail is forwarded. However
the "little ethic" of a private mail being forwarded is much smaller
than the "big ethic" of government paying companies to pay open source
developers (a member of a community-of-friends) to insert
privacy-invading holes in software.

----

From: Gregory Perry <Gregory.Perry@GoVirtual.tv>
To: "deraadt@openbsd.org" <deraadt@openbsd.org>
Subject: OpenBSD Crypto Framework
Thread-Topic: OpenBSD Crypto Framework
Thread-Index: AcuZjuF6cT4gcSmqQv+Fo3/+2m80eg==
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:55:25 +0000
Message-ID: <8D3222F9EB68474DA381831A120B1023019AC034@mbx021-e2-nj-5.exch021.domain.local>
Accept-Language: en-US
Content-Language: en-US
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: RO

Hello Theo,

Long time no talk. If you will recall, a while back I was the CTO at
NETSEC and arranged funding and donations for the OpenBSD Crypto
Framework. At that same time I also did some consulting for the FBI,
for their GSA Technical Support Center, which was a cryptologic
reverse engineering project aimed at backdooring and implementing key
escrow mechanisms for smart card and other hardware-based computing
technologies.

My NDA with the FBI has recently expired, and I wanted to make you
aware of the fact that the FBI implemented a number of backdoors and
side channel key leaking mechanisms into the OCF, for the express
purpose of monitoring the site to site VPN encryption system
implemented by EOUSA, the parent organization to the FBI. Jason
Wright and several other developers were responsible for those
backdoors, and you would be well advised to review any and all code
commits by Wright as well as the other developers he worked with
originating from NETSEC.

This is also probably the reason why you lost your DARPA funding, they
more than likely caught wind of the fact that those backdoors were
present and didn't want to create any derivative products based upon
the same.

This is also why several inside FBI folks have been recently
advocating the use of OpenBSD for VPN and firewalling implementations
in virtualized environments, for example Scott Lowe is a well
respected author in virtualization circles who also happens top be on
the FBI payroll, and who has also recently published several tutorials
for the use of OpenBSD VMs in enterprise VMware vSphere deployments.

Merry Christmas...

Gregory Perry
Chief Executive Officer
GoVirtual Education

"VMware Training Products & Services"

540-645-6955 x111 (local)
866-354-7369 x111 (toll free)
540-931-9099 (mobile)
877-648-0555 (fax)

[Khalqat]

Backdoors for openwareBSD?? Can anybody explain me the significance of this?

Thanks!

[maglomanic]

Open BSD is the Open Source licensed distribution of network stack that was created for Unix at Berkley. This has been widely adopted by various Operating Systems including Linux, Unix derivatives and Microsoft Windows( which conveniently used it in WinSoc API related to TCP/IP). This stack deals with different layers of network architecture (readup on OSI layers). If someone has a backdoor in these fundamental layers then they could hack into any type of network in the world today that is built using the OS that use this stack for networking.

On the subject though, Open BSD folks did an audit and found no backdoors.
http://arstechnica.c...of-backdoor.ars

[Khalqat]

^ thanks ...

For all the respected IT professionals here...

I am thinking about a career switch in network security, so I was just wondering if this is worthwhile in our economy and job market. Also, I would like to know what could be a good path for it.

I am a total beginner in this, and I am thinking by starting from getting a security+ certification...

thanks in advance

[Simpleton]

PlayStation 3 code signing cracked
Dongle-less jailbreaking

By John Leyden
Posted in PCs & Chips, 30th December 2010 15:51 GMT

Hardware hackers claim to have uncovered the private key used by Sony to authorise code to run on PlayStation 3 systems.

The hackers uncovered the hack in order to run Linux or PS3 consoles, irrespective of the version of firmware the games console was running. By knowing the private key used by Sony the hackers are able to sign code so that a console can boot directly into Linux. Previous approaches to running the open source OS on a games console were firmware specific and involved messing around with USB sticks.

The same code signing technique might also be used to run pirated or counterfeit games on a console. That isn't the intention of the hackers even though it might turn out to be the main practical effect of the hack.

The group, fail0verflow, who also run the Wii's Homebrew Channel, gave more information about the crack and a demo during the annual Chaos Communication Conference hacker congress in Berlin. Sony's weak implementation of cryptography was exploited by fail0verflow to pull off the hack, as explained in a video on enthusiast site PSGroove here.

More discussion on the console jailbreaking hack can be found on a PlayStation forum here. ®

[sobank]

^ thanks ...

For all the respected IT professionals here...

I am thinking about a career switch in network security, so I was just wondering if this is worthwhile in our economy and job market. Also, I would like to know what could be a good path for it.

I am a total beginner in this, and I am thinking by starting from getting a security+ certification...

thanks in advance

dont know how it works in US. In canada, they ask for bachelor to begin with and then certification.

[MoThSmOkE]

Why dont you move to Oracle training+certification. Database,Virtualization,Apps.

Dont know about the demand in the West though.

I am looking for a job switch maybe outside Thailand. I'll still be stuck here in south east asia cuz I like it here.

I am a B.Sc and M.Sc in Computer Science and Information Management. Currently into IT Infrastructure+IT Management.

Have an ITIL certificate. Feel the need for more certificates to move up.

[blueazure]

all right , i have a question for all the network gurus ,,

i have a IEEE 802.11 N wi fi router at home that has a bandwidth of 150Mbps..

now is there is a limit to the number of devices that can connect to it ? i mean, lets say, i have 2 laptops, one desktop and my phone using internet through the router, will there be some effect on internet speed ??

[sobank]

all right , i have a question for all the network gurus ,,

i have a IEEE 802.11 N wi fi router at home that has a bandwidth of 150Mbps..

now is there is a limit to the number of devices that can connect to it ? i mean, lets say, i have 2 laptops, one desktop and my phone using internet through the router, will there be some effect on internet speed ??

most device claim to have space for 255 connection.

I warn you that greater the number of devices poorer network.

All the devices are sharing the same bandwidth speed so if you use all of them at once, 150mb will be shared.

the quality of signal has lot to do with your router and its location along with location and receiving wireless card devices.

If you are planning to buy, regardless of anything that anyone told you, buy linksys and nothing else.

[MoThSmOkE]

150 mbps is the theoretical limit.

You'd be lucky to get even half that. And 2 laptops sharing it. Depends on what you use really. Why do you need a fast connection? Torrent? Porn?

Just make sure, when you config the wifi router, the channel is not the default value. I believe 11 is the default value. Choosing a different channel would give you better signal strength.

[blueazure]

^^

ahmmmm , ahhmmm,, ummmmm,,

no,,,not porn



torrents mostly,, i have a dedicated PC at home on which movies etc are being downloaded 24x7, plus two laptops and two phones using net , phones not much a problem , but my brother is on WOW all the time .. but generally speaking, if the signal is even 80% , browsing is comfortable..

i use a 1 Mbps internet connection and a 150Mbps 802.11 N TP link router with three antennas.. on the whole , performance is good,, my only question was, do three device connected to the same access point split the router bandwidth / internet bandwidth,, or one or both ???


and why do wi fi routers have so much problem penetrating ceilings , yet have a far greater lateral range performance ??? is it about frequency,,, the higher it goes(2.4GHz), the more difficult to penetrate walls etc... and yeah,, linksys is good, but here in pak, tp link has suddenly taken over the market in the 802.11 N category ,, and ive found their devices to be good

[sobank]

well if your roofs are made of material that are walls are generally made up of, you wont have an upper floor to begin with. The roof is mostly made of solid wood or concrete and that is why the penetration is not that much (comparatively) and also its thicker.

150mb is in theory. if you got really good thing going your way, you will get 110mb at least (i get that on my laptop).

back to math now. 1mb connection (and i am thinking that you mean mega byte) translates into 8m bits. Your router should be able to handle that. your bottleneck will be the connection and not the router.

The real slow down that you might experience is when you work internally. getting files from one pc to another wirelessly will considerably affect your speed between router and other devices.

-------------------------

I dont know if you have lived in US or canada. But if u did, the difference between the lateral horizontal reception and vertical penetration is much much much more pronounced. The walls are made of dry wall sheet and they are practically paper compare to brick walls.

[blueazure]

^^ i use a 1 Mbps connection , bits ie.. that is around 110kBps,,

neways, im guessing in canada etc , vertical penetration should be not be much of a problem, but here in pak, you know how walls are made

[sobank]

^^ i use a 1 Mbps connection , bits ie.. that is around 110kBps,,

neways, im guessing in canada etc , vertical penetration should be not be much of a problem, but here in pak, you know how walls are made

yup. In canada even the roof is made out of wooden structure so wifi connection is not that much of a problem.

[blueazure]

^^ and one more thing,, the 150Mbps figure is plain marketing BS.. i mean, on my router, with 100% signal, file transfer from PC to laptop takes at around 1.2-1.3 MB/s ,, that is roughly 8,9Mbps network... way less than the advertised 150Mbps

[sobank]

My laptop gets 130 Mb. Your transfer speed sounds like a good b or poor g connection.

Edited by sobank, 12 January 2011 - 09:35 PM.

[MoThSmOkE]

blueazure:

Have you tried changing the channel of the wifi. It might help.

And how is your PC connected? Through RJ-45 LAN cable?

TP-Link, D-Link routers I've had bad experiences with.

Maybe upgrade their firmware or something.

[Khalqat]

all right , i have a question for all the network gurus ,,

i have a IEEE 802.11 N wi fi router at home that has a bandwidth of 150Mbps..

now is there is a limit to the number of devices that can connect to it ? i mean, lets say, i have 2 laptops, one desktop and my phone using internet through the router, will there be some effect on internet speed ??

hmmm,

The routers bandwidth of 150Mbps is the advertised range of the router, not to be confused with the internet connection. The internet's connection's best available speed is available through the ethernet connection or the fiber optic cable. When it comes to wireless, this where it is the slowest. I think as long as your devices are connecting to the internet independently (not from a home network) it should be fine. But if there are interferences, then it can cause some problems.

It is always a good practice to put your router away from all kinds of wires (copper capacitance issues) and near an opening like a window or something... somewhere it is left all alone doing what it does best. The higher it is placed usually the better it performs.

[blueazure]

My laptop gets 130 Mb. Your transfer speed sounds like a good b or poor g connection.

130Mbps? linksys router ?

[blueazure]

^^

@ khalqat/ mothsmoke

yea, i know the 150Mbps figure is for the router bandwidth, however , i disagree that the best available speed comes from the RJ 45 LAN cable,,, since speedtest.net confirms that whether on wi fi or RJ 45, there isnt any drop in speed, however i suspect there is some drop in ping ( havent checked pingtest.net ) but that's only an issue for gaming, streaming etc...

neways,, utorrent running 24x7 on my pc (connected through wifi ) tells me the down speed a good 105,90 KBps ( 1Mbps net connection ie ) , so speed is OK i guess ( wi fi signal through a tp link draft N antenna =100% )

my only query was extremely poor pc to laptop file transfer speeds through the router.. ( laptop too has draft N tech ) ,,, ?????

mothsmoke > i use WEP security encryption instead of the recommended WPA ( so that i can use net on my smartfone as well ) ,, does it affect the network bandwidth speed ? and yes, there seems to be noise as i have interference from atleat 3 routers from the neighborhood..... will change the channel /tweak the firmware and report ,, was a bit busy in the last days , so couldnt attempt it ......

[blueazure]

but yea,i get the point, RJ 45 cable should allow for better network speeds.. will check

[Khalqat]

^^

@ khalqat/ mothsmoke

yea, i know the 150Mbps figure is for the router bandwidth, however , i disagree that the best available speed comes from the RJ 45 LAN cable,,, since speedtest.net confirms that whether on wi fi or RJ 45, there isnt any drop in speed, however i suspect there is some drop in ping ( havent checked pingtest.net ) but that's only an issue for gaming, streaming etc...

neways,, utorrent running 24x7 on my pc (connected through wifi ) tells me the down speed a good 105,90 KBps ( 1Mbps net connection ie ) , so speed is OK i guess ( wi fi signal through a tp link draft N antenna =100% )

my only query was extremely poor pc to laptop file transfer speeds through the router.. ( laptop too has draft N tech ) ,,, ?????

mothsmoke > i use WEP security encryption instead of the recommended WPA ( so that i can use net on my smartfone as well ) ,, does it affect the network bandwidth speed ? and yes, there seems to be noise as i have interference from atleat 3 routers from the neighborhood..... will change the channel /tweak the firmware and report ,, was a bit busy in the last days , so couldnt attempt it ......

well, you can test it out yourself. hook up your laptop with your computer together with an ethernet cable and compare the file transfer rate... this should cut down transfer time into half at least.

the more devices share your router, the more likely hood that its going to get slow down. Its just more load for the router. Then throw in all the multi taskings each device does while utilizing the internet. The only solution would be getting faster internet service.

[Khalqat]

but yea,i get the point, RJ 45 cable should allow for better network speeds.. will check

Also, I would suggest throwing out your mobile/iphone devices from home network and let them use the router directly.

[sobank]

linksys wrt300

Transfer speed doesnt look less on internet because your internet (like all of us) is not fast enough to eat up all the bandwidth that wireless has to offer. but use the file transfer from pc to laptop and you will see the difference (which also depends on how much data your laptop or pc can push).

Now back to your real problem, does your router has three antennas???

adding or subtracting devices from network does not affect the speed.

[MoThSmOkE]

blueazure:

laptop (wifi) -> router -> isp -> speedtest.com
laptop (rj45) -> router -> isp -> speedtest.com

speedtest.com in your case only confirms your isp's bandwidth (thats where usually the bottleneck is).

pingtest.com would only test your ISP bandwidth.

What you can do is eg.
tracert www.google.com

check for the first 2 hops and see the value in ms.

or maybe ping pc from laptop and vice versa.

See if you get the same ping reply value when you plug both pc/laptop with RJ-45.

WEP security encryption shouldnt matter I feel. Have you checked the channel? 11 is usually the default value. Change that value.

[Khalqat]

linksys wrt300

adding or subtracting devices from network does not affect the speed.

I think it does... but if there is no home network then that should be ok. i believe...

[sobank]

I think it does... but if there is no home network then that should be ok. i believe...

dude either you are way to advance for me or else.....

as far as i know, on a router, when anything attached, a network is created. you see it or not is a different issue. But a network is already there. local ip is assigned to every object that is linked to network. Now, how an object is going to be attached to a network without being part of it is beyond my comprehension. as far as speed goes, regardless of components being able to see each other or not, has again no effect on the fact that as long as the traffic is not beyond the physical capability of network, number of wired or wireless connection not gonna affect it in negative way.(we are talking about regular home networking and not 100 connections at workplace)

perhaps you and other guys through a light on how an object is included in a network without being part of network (as you are describing it).

[Khalqat]

dude either you are way to advance for me or else.....

as far as i know, on a router, when anything attached, a network is created. you see it or not is a different issue. But a network is already there. local ip is assigned to every object that is linked to network. Now, how an object is going to be attached to a network without being part of it is beyond my comprehension. as far as speed goes, regardless of components being able to see each other or not, has again no effect on the fact that as long as the traffic is not beyond the physical capability of network, number of wired or wireless connection not gonna affect it in negative way.(we are talking about regular home networking and not 100 connections at workplace)

perhaps you and other guys through a light on how an object is included in a network without being part of network (as you are describing it).

Sorry, I think I was not being very clear... what I really meant to say was that... when we setup a home network, i.e., going into file and printer sharing, then we have the router, 1 host computer and then client computers (Workgroup). And yes, we can have many workgroups associated with 1 router. But once we make a workgroup then all the bandwidth that we get is from the host computer, and not the router itself. This is why I was saying that if the mobile/iphone device are outside the workgroup then they will share a different set of bandwidth coming directly from the router.

[sobank]

Sorry, I think I was not being very clear... what I really meant to say was that... when we setup a home network, i.e., going into file and printer sharing, then we have the router, 1 host computer and then client computers (Workgroup). And yes, we can have many workgroups associated with 1 router. But once we make a workgroup then all the bandwidth that we get is from the host computer, and not the router itself. This is why I was saying that if the mobile/iphone device are outside the workgroup then they will share a different set of bandwidth coming directly from the router.

the bottleneck is wifi. It doesnt matter who is hosting. blu problem is that his network is not being fast enough. And assuming that he has set the network properly, the problem is not how fast the host is working.

I dont think you are realizing that his bandwidth problem is not limited by the capability of the host to send data but it is the network to send the limited data.

P.S. bandwidth of a workgroup is the bandwidth of slowest element in the network. It is not host or physical network. when there is a wifi involved, the host is faster than the transmission and therefore (assuming the pc is not of used by bava aadam) problem is the slower transmission of network and not host.

[Khalqat]

the bottleneck is wifi. It doesnt matter who is hosting. blu problem is that his network is not being fast enough. And assuming that he has set the network properly, the problem is not how fast the host is working.

I dont think you are realizing that his bandwidth problem is not limited by the capability of the host to send data but it is the network to send the limited data.

P.S. bandwidth of a workgroup is the bandwidth of slowest element in the network. It is not host or physical network. when there is a wifi involved, the host is faster than the transmission and therefore (assuming the pc is not of used by bava aadam) problem is the slower transmission of network and not host.

ok...

didnt know about the fact that bandwidth of workgroup is because the slowest element in the network and not necessarily the host computer. agree that wifi is not the fastest medium for internet. but i always thought that you dont always need to be in the workgroup environment in order to have file sharing... such as hooking up 2 computers directly with the USB cable OR using blue tooth technology???

[sobank]

ok...

didnt know about the fact that bandwidth of workgroup is because the slowest element in the network and not necessarily the host computer. agree that wifi is not the fastest medium for internet. but i always thought that you dont always need to be in the workgroup environment in order to have file sharing... such as hooking up 2 computers directly with the USB cable OR using blue tooth technology???

babu if one comupter works with a speed of turtle then it doesn matter if you have the rest of your components are running with the speed of light. The fastest speed is the slowest speed in the equation.

Just like your home entertainment set up. the best quality is limited by the worst component in your step up. You can spend thousands of dollars on audio receiver, the best sound is the best sound that your $100 shitty speaker gonna put out

That is why I used to tell everyone that either you go all out and buy everything good or save money till you are able to buy everything good.

[sobank]

blueazure............... i think your problem is your router. get a 300n dap router. and if it is still bad, get a range extender.

You actually need an electrical network. Considering Pakistani houses, This is your best bet.
http://homestore.cis...9VVviewprod.htm

and here is a comparison between every type of connection.
http://www.youtube.c...mp;feature=fvwp

[MoThSmOkE]

I once had a Belkin wifi Access point. Installed it on the 4th floor on my office. And 7th floor the signal was pretty good (2/5). So I presume, wifi should be installed on the ground floor, so that you get a decent signal on the 2nd/3rd floor.

Blueazure: Did you try upgrading the your router's firmware. That could help.

[blueazure]

all right chaps,,

i took out my old linksys 802.11G , double antenna, WRT54G 54Mbps router and hooked my laptops ( through wi-fi) and started file transfer ( no internet running ) ,, >>>> and results are even more disappointing vis a vis my tp-link N 150Mbps router ,, transfer speed is 950~960 KBps ( around 7,8 Mbps, way below the advertised network speed of 54Mbps ) .... both machines ( aspire series ) have windows 7 ( one runs Basic , x64 , the other runs ultimate. x64 )

???


-----------------------------------

later on, connected both machines through RTJ 45 cable through the router and am getting a transfer speed of 6.5 , 7 MB/sec , thats around 60+ Mbps , way more than the advertised routher speed of 54 Mbps..

[Khalqat]

all right chaps,,

i took out my old linksys 802.11G , double antenna, WRT54G 54Mbps router and hooked my laptops ( through wi-fi) and started file transfer ( no internet running ) ,, >>>> and results are even more disappointing vis a vis my tp-link N 150Mbps router ,, transfer speed is 950~960 KBps ( around 7,8 Mbps, way below the advertised network speed of 54Mbps ) .... both machines ( aspire series ) have windows 7 ( one runs Basic , x64 , the other runs ultimate. x64 )

???

hey blueazer... check out this link below... you might find some info useful here.

link

[blueazure]

@ moth

changed the channel, makes no diff on the speed,,

upgrading the firmware?, i havent tried it but a few tech forums i came across mention significant range boosts,, however , ill see for my self if there is any improvement in speed ,, ill check it tomorrow,, off to bed now
and one more thing, r u sure its safe,, ? i mean, is there is a chance i might end up bricking my router?



and yeah,u r correct the advertised router speed of 54 Mbps, 150 Mbps etc is through RTJ 45 lan cable ,( just checked that ) , when using wi fi, there is a celing of 10Mbps ( the speed i was getting when moving files )

[sobank]

I tested my wrt300N file transfer today. It was clocking between 1.8-2 mb. Which basically could mean that your router might be already doing what it can. Did you check the house electrical connection method check ???

just check out second video in my post before. I suggest you have all your PCs linked through hard wired network and leave the wifi only for the laptop.