cancel all my router's protections (but WEP)

[tomchook]

hello!
i'm sick of all these protections on my wireless routers. it makes my life horrible (opening ports, problems with remote assistance, etc.)
I don't understand why I need such protections if I have a WEP key, and only people who have that WEP key can enter the network. besides, i'm using kaspersky security suit 6, and I feel that's all my computers need.

I would like to cancel all these protections beside my WEP key. How can I do that?

thanks!

Tom

[Cellus]

If your wireless router and wireless adapter on your computer support WPA, use that instead of WEP as WEP provides extremely weak wireless encryption. Even then, for either WPA or WEP, the protection only spans between your computer to the wireless router - protection against malicious attacks and such will require other things like firewalls. Kaspersky Internet Security 6.0 does come with a personal firewall.

Since you are using a router that is most likely using Network Address Translation (NAT), there is not much you can do to not go through the hassle of port forwarding and so forth because of its design. The only real way to forego this would be to bypass the router and have a direct connection to the internet, which I am assuming you can/do not want to do since you're using wireless.

[johnwill]

Well, the opening ports has nothing to do with wireless connections. The fact that your router allows multiple machines to connect requires a NAT (Network Address Translation) layer, which is why you have to forward ports.

If you have one machine that you would like wide-open to the Internet, put it's IP address in the DMZ of the router. Note that this removes any protection the router offers for that machine.

[bilbus]

and people wonder why there are worms.