Disabling ad-hoc networking is one way to prevent a computer
Disabling ad-hoc networking is one way to prevent a computer from connecting to wireless networks indiscriminately. Turning the dang radio off is a sure-fire way, and users should do that whenever they’re working offline. You wouldn’t leave the engine running at a drive-in movie, would you? Here’s how to turn the radio off in Windows:
- Right-click on the wireless network icon in the right-hand corner of the screen. (That’s the picture of the computer with radio waves coming out of it.)
- Click disable.
“If you’re in transit, on an airplane, for example, and there’s no [Internet connection] anyway, then you should turn your radio off,” Durst says. “If you leave it on, it will keep on trying to talk to other machines.”
Corporate travelers also should be sure to turn their radios off before they return to the office and plug back into the corporate network. This goes for both laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled handheld devices. Anything with a Wi-Fi radio can find Wi-Fi networks that reside outside the office walls. Once they’re back in the office, those radios can form a bridge between a nearby hotspot and the corporate network, creating an inadvertent security threat.
