Dummies, Wireless

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Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
Rathbone), and Windows Vista For Dummies (also by Andy Rathbone), all
from Wiley Publishing, Inc., include some details about networking. These
books are all good. In fact, some smart bookstore should bundle them with
Wireless Home Networking For Dummies because they’re complementary. In
this chapter, we expose you to the network and what’s inside it (and there’s
probably a free prize among those Cracker Jacks somewhere, too!). That
should get you started. But if you want to know more, we urge you to grab
one of these more detailed books.
It’s one thing to attach a device to the network — either directly or as an
attachment — but it’s another to share it with others. Sharing your computer
and devices is a big step. You not only open yourself up to lots of potential
unwanted visitors (such as bad folks sneaking in over your Internet connection),
but you also make it easier for friendly folks (like your kids) to erase
stuff and use things in unnatural ways. That’s why you can (and should!)
control access by using passwords or by allowing users to only read (open
and copy) files on your devices rather than change them. In Windows XP,
security is paramount, and you must plan how, what, and with whom you
share. Windows Vista takes that security to the next level by securing who
can allow sharing in the first place. Definitely take the extra time to configure
your system for these extra security layers. We tell you in this chapter about
some of these mechanisms (see the later sections “Setting permissions” and
“Windows Vista and a New Way to Share”); the books we mention previously
go into these topics in more detail.
A Networking Review
Before we get too far into the concept of file sharing, we review the basic networking
concepts (which we touch on in earlier chapters of this book). In
particular, we describe what a network is and how it works.
Basic networking terminology
Simply defined, a network is something that links computers, printers, and
other devices. A protocol is the language that devices use to communicate
with each other on a network. These days, the standard protocol used for
most networking is Ethernet.
For one device to communicate with another under the Ethernet protocol, the
transmitting device needs to accomplish a few things. First, it must announce
itself on the network and declare which device it’s trying to talk to. Then it
must authenticate itself with that destination device — by confirming that