Connecting to wireless at work help!

dhallman · #1 (**permalink**) 07-31-2006, 02:23 PM

My situation is that there is a wireless network at my workplace that I would like to connect to with my laptop, but must do so very discretly. I am about 30 ft. from a point where I can receive 3 bars signal strength which is a good connection. At my desk I only receive 1 bar and can not connect. I had considered setting up a booster, but then others would detect it and I would be deemed to be using company equipment for personal use, which is a no-no. My question is if an antenna can be placed up to 30 ft. from my laptop to the area of good reception and wired back to my area. I can run such a line in the ceiling, out of sight. Other thoughts welcome.

Thanks,
Don

NZLamb · #2 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 07:08 AM

From a wireless networking perspective I am happy to help here but please read on. The antenna idea is feasable if you have an external antenna connector on your laptop, if not you might need to consider a PCMCIA or USB adapter that does have such a connector. You will also need good low-loss cable if you intend to run more than a couple of metres. Such cable can be quite thick in diameter and is also quite costly.

More importantly though, as having many years experience as an IT administrator, I know that this type of activity is often very frowned apon not so much for personal use of company equipment but more from a network security point of view.

It is considered extremely bad practice to connect personal computers to a company network as the contents of the computer are unknown and often unable to be monitored by network staff. The network becomes vulnerable to any malicious content that may be on the laptop (not necessarily deliberate). Good network administrators should have measures to help prevent this (network port authentication, intrusion detection, PKI, good monitoring etc).

If you are part of the IT crowd then you may already be aware of all this. This is all just my opinion so don't take it personally, I am just trying to help make you aware of the issues involved.