I've just remembered one more thing to consider. Assuming you're in the United States, there's a law from a few years back called CALEA, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, which basically require telephone company networks to be "wiretap ready" so that if the FBI came knocking with a warrant to listen in on somebody's conversations, the phone company had to be able to quickly comply. Fast forward a decade or so, and about two years ago the FCC noticed the growth in VOIP (Voce Over Internet Protocol) traffic. And they issued a ruling that all providers of "public Internet access" must comply with CALEA. They made exceptions for libraries and restaurants, but not for colleges and universities.... So basically, if you don't take steps to keep your wifi private (such as requiring a password), it is at least theoretically possible that you could be fined for not being prepared to provide access to any voice traffic going over it. (The routers I have seen that will sort out VOIP from data traffic in order to implement CALEA compliance retail for about $35K and up, but of course can handle much more traffic than a home connection needs. Of course, I haven't heard that anyone actually HAS been fined, and the odds are probably pretty low. But anyone that suggests that you should, for the common good, run your wifi wide open for anyone to use (yes, I've heard people, even people I seriously respect, take this position) is effectively urging civil disobedience -- they should at least also tell you that they are suggesting that you break the law, and explain why the think it is a bad law that should be broken, and let you make your own (*informed*) decision. So the advice in this thread about how to deter "leeching" ought to be considered even by those who don't think it's a problem... David Gillett CISSP CCNP PCSOFT's List Owners: Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]> Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>