Here's my situation. We have a bed and breakfast
for which I just setup a high speed wireless
network (using Bekini Pre-N). We have a desktop PC
for my office (wired to the Belkin Pre-N) and
a laptop for my wife (with a Belkin Pre-N card).
We both have Windows XP Home edition.
The internet connection works fine for myself, my
wife, and my guests.
I'm concerned if I allow file sharing anyone who
accesses our network will be able to see our
files if I have file sharing on. And just having
a group name doesn't seem to be much
protection.
What I want to be able to do is allow guests
access to the internet and have my wife and I
on a private lan where we can share files.
Whats the best way to do this? Can Windows XP
protect the files or do I need to setup my
firewall (Zonealarm Pro) to allow us access to each
others files? Or something else? Or a combination?
There are a couple of easy things to do to
make your shares more secure without segmenting your
LAN and creating a separate sub-net. Create your
shares in Explorer and add a $ to the end
of each share name, this hides the filename from
file manager or explorer, the only way to get
to it is if you know the name of the shared
file. Secondly XP comes with simple password
protection so you can also password protect the
share in addition to the $ at the end of the
share name. That should keep them out.
