Everyone knows that Wi-Fi WEP can be easily hacked, but recently an expolit for Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) standard has come to light.

The exploit allows a hacker to “send bogus data to an unsuspecting WiFi client,” completely compromising your Wi-Fi security.

Fortunately there is an easy fix. Jump into your mode/router and switch off Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) as an encryption mode, and use Advanced Encryption System (AES) only. TKIP is the only protocol that the hack applies to.

For more deatil, check out this story.

If you have a DG834G ADSL router and wish to monitor it, there isn’t any options in the GUI interface to manage it via SNMP. Yes, you can configure it to respond to ICMP (PING) but what if you want more?

After a bit of searching around, I found instructions to do it (as shown below):

1) Access your router on 192.168.0.1/snmp.htm
2) Enable SNMP and make your community name ‘public’. Click Apply.
3) Type in the address bar: 192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=debug (it will say “Debug enabled”).
4) Click Start, Run, type in ‘cmd’ to get a command prompt.
5) Type ‘telnet 192.168.0.1′ (You will see a BusyBox shell prompt).
6) type ‘iptables -D INPUT 1′ at the # prompt (this disables SNMP blocking).

That’s it, your router will now respond to SNMP requests on port 161.

Of course if your router has a different IP address simply replace 192.168.0.1 in all the steps above with whatever your router’s IP is.

Note: that if you make any changes to your firewall rules, if your router reboots or if it reconnects for any reason then the DG834 will reset the IP tables and you will need to run that command in the telnet window again. That’s all you will need to do though, the SNMP setting remains and the debug mode stays active until you physically reboot the router.

Wireless internet access is great - most of the time. It saves the need for running wires through your house, but can be a bitch to set up, and can be affected by other devices that emit radio signals.

Most new routers are expensive, high-performance affairs that use the 802.11n standard. But the ‘funky looking’ WRT54G2 sticks to the slower but still reliable 802.11g standard which enables perfectly acceptable internet access and half-decent file transfer speeds. It also costs half the price of 11n kit.

Beyond its living-room friendly design (the antennae are internal), its distinguishing feature is Linksys EasyLink Advisor, or LELA. This is a truly idiot-proof set-up. Out of the box, instructions scream “run the disc’s software first”. Simple, animated diagrams aid cabling and you’re walked through setting up a secure wireless network.

If you have a compatible “Wi-Fi Protected Setup” device, connecting involves simply pressing buttons on both devices. Those who like tinkering with advanced options have all of the usual features available via the browser-based settings.

Note: There’s no modem inside the WRT54G2 - you’ll need to connect one via an Ethernet cable.

Check it out here.

Google today has released street view in Australia, the third country to get it.

The snapshots are taken by a fleet of cars fitted with special cameras that drive across the country, capturing images on every street corner and along every highway. Quite possibly you have seen them out on the streets. They are just a normal car with a small Google logo on the door, and a long pole with a camera mounted on the roof of the car.

The technology has so far been used to create virtual replicas of major US cities and the route of this year’s Tour De France, but Google will today unveil its most comprehensive Street View project to date – the mapping of virtually all of southeast Australia and much of the east and west coasts.

I checked out my house and it looks like the photo was taken on garbage day as there are garbage bins outside of my house.

Lastly, a bit of trivia - Google Maps was actually invented in Australia and that is why there is now more extensive coverage than in the USA.

In a great move, Paypal have released a great new security measure that will go a longs way in preventing fraud.

The security key, which works in a way very simialr to the more common RSA secureID that many peope use at work, the key generates a random number every 30 seconds. This number needs to be input every time you log into your Ebay or Paypal account.

The key costs only a few dollars and is a once off fee - certainly peace of mind to know that there is an extra level of security on your Paypal account.