November 10, 2010

AT&T Internet Service, Their Router, And Security

I helped someone out with setting up their modem/wireless router for AT&T after their old one got fried. The new one was by 2Wire. I was extremely disappointed to find that the wireless router uses WEP by default. In addition, AT&T does not make it obvious on changing this, nor do they make it obvious on how to connect to the router to change settings.

It was easy enough for me to find the IP address for the router, simply by looking at the status of the network connection in Windows and looking at the IP address for the gateway. Thankfully it was easy enough to get into and work with and see that they offer WPA2. Still, AT&T should force this to be the default, not WEP.

Ironically, someone from AT&T came by my house this evening to try to get me to buy into their U-verse product. As I got home later than expected and it was too cold outside for me to want have a long conversation with them, I held back from asking about compatibility with Linux, what wireless encryption their router uses by default, and going into how dangerous their DSL router default settings are. Aside from those arguments, I don't watch much television, and when I do, it usually ends up being British. There's also not enough of a speed and price difference for me to leave the local ISP I get my service from (which they never heard of, despite being the largest local ISP in the area). And switching ISPs feels like too much of a pain - like moving.

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