Strong Password & Access Control

As a new iPhone user, I recently used AirPort Utility 5.5.2 to disable Access Control because I was having difficulty finding the phone's Media Access Control address.

I have since found it in iPhone -> Settings -> General -> About -> Wi-Fi Address and enabled Access Control again for the devices which can join the home network with the password.

My question is whether using both a strong password and access control are good practices?

A strong password is good practice under any circumstance. Hiding your MAC address won't keep it from those in the know who really want it, but it can't hurt.

Originally Posted By: alternaut

A strong password is good practice under any circumstance. Hiding your MAC address won't keep it from those in the know who really want it, but it can't hurt.

I agree that discovering a MAC address is not too difficult. But being able to turn around and use that info to sneak into a network which is granting access only to specific devices (hardware addresses) would take some pretty crafty doing. [but i guess the guys in that van around the corner probably have the gizmos to do that sort of stuff.

]

Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis

I agree that discovering a MAC address is not too difficult. But being able to turn around and use that info to sneak into a network which is granting access only to specific devices (hardware addresses) would take some pretty crafty doing.

Not really. There are apps which will do it without any special knowledge on the user's part.

Originally Posted By: tacit

Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis

I agree that discovering a MAC address is not too difficult. But being able to turn around and use that info to sneak into a network which is granting access only to specific devices (hardware addresses) would take some pretty crafty doing.

Not really. There are apps which will do it without any special knowledge on the user's part.

Which apps?

Are you asking me for a list of applications which can be used to do MAC address spoofing? I'm not sure that's really appropriate in this forum, but I reckon a few minutes with Google should satisfy your curiosity...

Well, i don't find any "apps" yet. Some special terminal commands do turn up, so... perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between my 'crafty doing' assertion and your 'no special knowledge' appraisal. [i still think the hacker would need to make some studious effort to succeed.]