just got a router and am being told we need to get someone from geek squad to hook us up and make it secure. Is this really necessary? Is this something I might be able to do myself even though I'm not great with computers. I figured I'd ask opinions since I'm not too trusting of retailers... They wan't $90 to hook us up and encrypt for security...

Wow $90 for under 15 minutes of work. If you need help, let me know and I'll walk you through the setup. What brand of router do you have? I am familiar with Linksys and Dlink routers.

yah i could help too.

maybe the other geeks here could compare thoughts with me but (and obviously I would explain this in step by step way to you Slack) my thoughts would be to enable the highest level pw encryption, create an access list limited by MAC address, and limit # of IPs available on the network.

Joe, there are a ton of us that can help you with this. definitely don't pay the "geek squad" to come out and set up a WEP key for you.....

the geek squad is already here....

they probably charge $90 to coat your walls in tin foil

Damn....$90 for 15min!! I should change jobs.

cool thank you all I will cancel the apt. We got a Netgear model WPN824. my biggest concern is making sure it's hacker safe, I guess people can use your signal or something and then look in your hard drive? I would think this should be easy, but they said something about encrypting it so I'm not sure what to do. Should I just go as far as I can and then ask questions, though I'm not sure if I will be able to get online if I screw something up...

Just curious - is Netgear telling you that Geek Squad needs to set up your router security? If so, that's fucking lame - Netgear technical support should be doing it for free. If this is the case I'll never buy another Netgear router.

no Netgear had nothing to do with it, we bought it at Best Buy and the salesman actually said we should be able to do it ourselves but I was skeptical and called the geeks who said they had to do it...

Isn't Geek Squad owned by Best Buy? So they're just redirecting business to themselves. If it's a Netgear, their tech support (or guys here) should be able to walk you through it.

There's about a dozen wireless networks in my building, and I routinely use one or two for internet access as they aren't secured. That's all that I do. I suppose if you have filesharing running without passwords, one could connect anonymously from the outside and do all sorts of things.

damn that was easy I feel like a retard for even asking about it now, thanks for the help offer Kirkland

lol....less of a retard than if you paid $90 to have "Geek Squad" come over and do it....