Hi, hope you can help please. I've recently dumped a home wireless system after too much hassle with a poor signal in an old house and the internet connection dropping off. Instead have got ethernet plugs which are Brilliant.
So far so good. But yesterday my nephew came around with his new laptop -- and as soon as he switched on it showed my wireless as available ! Bit of a shock. It is WEP encrypted but I gather from technie friends that doesn't make it impossible to access. I am still using the same router and card. Any advice on what to do very welcome - thanks.

What do you mean by you "dumped" the wireless? Did you remove the system and unpluged it? or you stopped using it but it is still connected to the power? If the later is thru, and the wireless is still part of your network, of course it can still be seen. WEP encription is a "static" kind of encription. The encription is always the same. Somebody can eventually figure it out and get into the network. On the other hand WPA is dynamic type of encription. It is always changing using your password or key. That makes it a lot lot more difficult to breake into it. You have a lot better security with WPA than WEP. WPA2 is even more secure than WPA.

Sounds to me like you just want to go into your router configuration page (instructions would come with the router but it's usually a case of opening Internet Explorer and browsing to http://192.168.1.1) and then disable the option to use the wireless networking function on the router.

Thanks for the advice. I have physically removed the hardware and drivers from the remote computer but was wary of what to do with the main computer as I am using the same router. On the router configuration page there is nothing obvious like "disable wireless" but there are dns options, connection type, LAN settings etc But I don't understand what they mean unfortunately and don't want to de-select the wrong thing !

If you could give us the make and model number of your router, we might be able to find screenshots on the Internet to tell you what to do

That would be great, thanks. It's a Belkin F5D7630-4A (ADSL Modem with built-in 802.11g wireless router). Much appreciated

The F5D7630-4A is listed on Belkin's web site but it appears that the page that links to any support information on that model is broken. I did, however, manage to download the large user guide for the F5D7230-4, which is also an 802.11g wireless router so I would hope that the configuration screen layout is the same.

Rather than a single check-box to switch wireless on or off, there are two separate steps to follow in your case. If you have a list of menu options within different groups down the left hand side of the router configuration page, select 'Channel and SSID' from the Wireless group. There is a radio button option labelled 'SSID Broadcast'. Move this from Enabled to Disabled. Press the 'Apply Changes' button. The name of your network is no longer being transmitted so no-one can connect to your network any more unless they already know the name of it.

There's the possibility, however, that someone HAS already found the name of your network (because they live close to you and it appears in their Windows XP list of available wireless networks for example). So, to avoid the risk of someone already knowing the name of your network and, therefore, still being able to work on cracking your WEP key, change the SSID. After changing it, click the 'Apply Changes' button again.

That's it - as far as I understand it, you're safe now. No-one can connect to your network unless they crack your WEP key and they find out your new SSID, which is not being broadcast by your router and, therefore, shouldn't be appearing in anyone's wireless network list.

In addition to all of the above;

Click on "Wireless Bridge". In the Wireless Bridge window:
Remove any check mark next to "Enable Wireless Bridging".
Put a check mark next to the box that says "Disable ability for Wireless CLIENTS to connect".

Click "Apply Changes".

Hi again, thanks for the info. I have followed the instructions about disabling the SSID broadcast and changed the SSID name BUT on the front page (Status page) it still has Wireless as "enabled" although the new name of the SSID is there. In reply to the second suggestion, unfortunately "wireless bridge" is not listed that I can see. Thanks again.