One of the problems many we find many of our clients suffer from is a poor internet connection and various issues with their network. While we do not specialise specifically in networking services we do offer some basic services for out clients in order to make life a little easier for them.

Without a doubt one of the most important aspects of a business is its ability to connect to the Internet and the internal network of the company.

We find that many SMEs will frequently have an inadequate connection to the internet and quite often a cheap router that is not cut out for the job. Some of the issues a client will typically face include:

• Slow connections (Downloads + Uploads)
• Lack of SMTP server
• Frequent disconnections
• Drops in performance (due to congestion)
• Poor security (if any)

In order to reduce these problems we strongly advise companies to chose an ISP and router that is capable of handling their day to day tasks.

The ISP we typically use is Be and we generally recommend Be Pro. We find Be Pro to be an excellent option for a small office as it has speeds of up to 24 meg download and 2.5 meg with Upload Plus service. It also includes a static IP and access to Be’s SMTP servers which are used for sending emails. There is no official download limit so it should be more than capable of handling any downloads, however as with all ISPs there is a fair use policy so downloading several hundred gigabytes per month may cause issues.

One word of warning with Be is that it is ADSL 2+ and the speeds you receive are dependant on the distance from your exchange.

If you do decide to go with Be they will send you out a free wireless router which is adequate for most situations, especially for home use. However for a business we personally recommend in investing in something a little more capable.

Our router of choice is the Draytek Vigor 2820. This is a fantastic little router that is capable of handling Annex M which is used for the increased upload speeds.

Some of the other features include:

• ADSL/ADSL2+ and Broadband Router
• Dual-WAN ports for ADSL or cable modem or both
• 3G (Cellular) Modem support
• Comprehensive and Robust Firewall
• Twin VoIP ports with PSTN passthrough (‘V’ models only)
• Content Filtering (by matched keyword or data type)
• SurfControl Web Site Category Filtering
• Ethernet and WLAN Virtual LAN segmentation (common/distinct)
• Configurable QoS Features (For traffic prioritisation)
• VPN Dial-in/dial-out with VPN hardware co-processor
• 802.11n Draft 2.0 Wireless LAN (‘n’ models only)
• Gigabit Ethernet LAN Port for LAN Server connectivity
• USB Port for Printer or 3G Modem
• Highly configurable but easy to install and monitor

We like this router for many including:

• Gigabit Ethernet LAN Port: It would be nicer is all the ports were Gigabit however if you connect the single Gigabit port up to a Gigabit switch you will have a true Gigabit network that should future proof the network for quite a long time.
• The firewall features measure for protection against attacks including DoS (Denial of Service) attacks, IP-based attacks and access by unauthorised remote systems. Wireless, Ethernet and VPN are also protected by various protection systems including WPA, MAC Address Filter, Switchable Hidden SSID, and Wireless LAN Isolation. The new DrayTek object-based firewall allows even more setup flexibility than ever, enabling you to create combinations of users, rules and restrictions to suit multi-departmental organisations.
• Content control features of the firewall allow you to set restrictions on web site access, blocking download of certain file types, blocking specific web sites, blocking IM/P2P applications or other potentially harmful or wasteful content. Using the SurfControl site categorisations enable you to block whole categories of web sites (e.g. gambling, pornography etc.), subject to subscription. You can also block http downloads of file types
• Bandwidth management including QoS and Class-based Bandwidth Guarantee by User-Defined Traffic Categories

We have used this router ourselves since it was released an have had no issues with it. In general we have never had any unwanted re-boots and system uptime is normally in weeks.

Well for the past 2-3 months I have put up with a variety of mediocre solutions for blogging. It was not uncommon for me to use MS Word for writing a post, as my spelling is awful, Dreamweaver for laying the post out and then finally copying and pasting it into WordPress. Not very fun.

After a Blog post from Karthik I decided to try out BlogDesk and also Windows Live Writer. I first tried out BlogDesk and while it is excellent and seems like quite a lightweight application I got the feeling it was a little slim on features. So I finally took the plunge and I am now testing Windows Live Writer. It has defiantly been a little harder to set up than BlogDesk, at first Live Writer did not recognise this blog, after upgrading it seems to be working so far, but I have read of problems with the publishing of the blog. So if this publishes without any hitch then Live Writer will defiantly be my choice for blogging for now. Some of the feature I like are:

1. The spell checking works the same as Word so I can correct my mistakes as I go.
2. Insert Hyperlink, yes it is easy no matter what you are using but I link to a lot of things so the easier the better.
3. Insert Table, again it’s easy no matter, but it’s a hassle I can’t be bothered spending extra time on.
4. Insert Video, for some reason I always had problems when adding embedded video through the WordPress interface. I have not tried it yet so it may not be as handy as it looks.
5. Plugins – There aren’t loads yet but there are defiantly a few handy ones, I downloaded the Insert Adsense, and Insert Amazon Link plugins which will definitely be handy for my other blogs.
6. Tagging you can add Tags from several different providers.
7. Update Theme, Live Writer actually downloads the theme of the site so you get a rough idea of the look of the post before you publish it.
8. Reminders to set categories. I am a tad forgetful and always forget to set categories, so this comes in handy.

Overall I am very impressed with it so far, we shall see how long it lasts though!

Following my last post regarding WEP being insecure I think it’s a good idea to explain why it is flawed and how easy it is to break the WEP key. The following information is for educational purposes only and we would never recommend you trying to hack a wireless router that does not belong to yourself. While I am not a lawyer breaking into a wireless router would fall under the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 and the 2003 Communications Act. The Computer Misuse Act can lead to a fine and a 5 year prison conviction.

The fundamental problem with WEP is because the WEP key is rarely changed by the user and each packet of data contains an initialisation vector to form an RC4 encryption traffic key then all packets of data will be linked to the initialisation vector.

Therefore a hacker can assume that all encrypted packets captured are related to the initialisation vector. A 24bit initialisation vector will have around 17million possible combinations, and with the birthday paradox it is very likely that for every 4096 packets that are sent (and caught by the hacker) two will shame the same initialisation vector and therefore the same RC4 key. With many keys used being weak it has been possible to break into a WEP secured network within 3 minutes.

The following are vidoes showing how easy it is to crack a WEP encrypted network

Cracking WEP

Cracking WEP in 1 min on a Mac