WEP & WPA

If your mother uses wifi at home to send you e-mail, and your home network is not protected by WEP or WPA, what reasons would you suggest to her for enabling one of these two protocols at home if the liability of reading those e-mails still exists once her message leaves your home, on it’s way to school?

Since the network is wireless & not as secure as the traditional wired network, her e-mails are vulnerable to confidentiality & tampering. In order to secure the transmission of her messages to me, she would need to enable either WEP or WPA. By enabling one of these two protocols, she is further protecting her message from an unprotected transmission. The content of the message is less likely to be untentionally used if she enables a WEP or WPA. I would suggest it to her to back-up the security of the wireless network itself.

If she was sending personal information, credit card information, academic information, etc. in the e-mail, it is critical that there is some form of protection for that message. Without any protection, the e-mail has been transmitted through an unsecure network and is not only vulnerable to deliberate use but unintentional use.