Best Practices
Personal wireless access points in the Residence Halls
Students are responsible for any computer connected to ResNet through their wireless access point/router. We discourage the use of these devices as they are more prone to causing network disruptions than directly connecting your computer to the jack with an Ethernet cable.
The following examples illustrate what could happen if you do not secure your wireless settings:
- Any computer connecting to the Internet through your wireless router and ResNet jack will affect your bandwidth (network activity) limit. That computer’s bandwidth usage accumulation is added on top of yours.
- If a computer connected to your wireless becomes compromised (infected with malicious programs or is broken into by an intruder), the ResNet jack the router is connected to will be turned off. All computers connected through that ResNet jack will have to be completely wiped, reformatted, and reinstalled before network access will be restored.
- If anyone uses your (wired or) wireless Internet connection to illegally download/upload copyrighted material, the activity will be attributed to you. You are completely responsible for all Internet activity occurring from your ResNet jack.
To avoid these problems, the IT Security Office requires that students with wireless access points do the following:
- Enable WPA2-PSK or WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) encryption.
- Use MAC filtering to limit use of the wireless router to only your own personal computer.
- Change the default Service Set Identifier (SSID) to a unique name. SSID is the name of the wireless local area network that is configured on the router. NOTE: You are strictly prohibited from using “UI-Wireless” in the name you choose. Using this reserved name will result in your Internet connection being terminated!
- Change the default admin password on the wireless device.
- Register the device by sending your ResNet jack number and wireless SSID to its-wireless@uiowa.edu