Safe wireless (almost)? Media Access Control (MAC) Addressing filtering is a form of wireless protection that can be used to keep unwanted visitors from accessing (stealing time on) your wireless high speed connection. Every network chip set has a unique address, in the format of 00-00-00-00-00-00, where an identifying address is stored, e.g., 06-12-f3-d2-50-e2. This address can be hard coded into your wireless router MAC filtering table for each computing device, e.g., iPod, PC, notebook, wireless DVD player, smartphone, etc., on your wireless network to allow access only to that (those) devices with corresponding MAC addresses while excluding all other devices. Here's a good link to more on MAC addressing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address The chances of someone hacking into your wireless router are much less when using very specific MAC addressing. While not impossible to hack, gaining access is harder to achieve. My guess is that most hackers wouldn't try to gain access to private homes unless there was a very, very good reason. Business hacking is another story all together. One downside to MAC addressing is the need to manually add new systems to the filtering table in your router, e.g., someone visiting who needs quick access to the Internet with their wireless device. MAC addressing filtering would work best in environments where system changes (device adds and removals are infrequent). Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is an older wireless protection scheme (still in use). WEP doesn't provide as much protection as the newer WPA/WPA2 security mechanisms. While both WEP and WPA will protect your wireless network, a hacker would only have to guess at your pass code to gain access. Many people use easily remembered pass codes, like their telephone number or the word 'password', making hacking in relatively easy. Currently, WPA/WPA2 is recommended by wireless router manufacturers and is sufficient for most wireless networks. Many networks have unprotected wireless making guessing a pass code irrelevant. If you view available wireless networks on your wireless device and see a lock icon next to a wireless network name, the wireless network is protected. If there is no lock icon, there is no protection from users hacking into/stealing that wireless network. One thing I recommend is using a generic wireless network name like "Linksys02" or "DLink27". Using a specific wireless network name like "SmithLawOffice" invites hackers in to see what can be found/accessed. Contact sam@desktop-specialists.com for help if you would like to insure that your wireless network protection is adequate to your security needs.