How can my laptop share my desktop's broadband?

April 29, 2004 12:26 PM

I have a (WinXP) desktop with a broadband connection, and a laptop with a WiFi card. My school doesn't allow wireless routers. I'd like to set it up so that my laptop can connect wirelessly to my desktop and piggyback on that connection, without a router. What equipment do I need? Are there some terms I should Google for instructions?

I should add that the range doesn't need to be great -- I just want to be able to do my work outside on the lawn, 30 feet below the window where my desktop is. Hooray for springtime.

posted by Aaorn to education (11 comments total)

Use a pair of bluetooth adapters and bridge the bluetooth and ethernet adapters on the PC (or use "internet connection sharing"). This will probably keep you from running afoul of your school's policies.

It seems to me that I've heard that you can somehow peer-to-peer 802.11x adapters, but I could be wrong.

If you go with a bluetooth solution, then it will interoperate with your cellphone and stuff, too.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:34 PM on April 29, 2004

You'd need a WiFi card (or a WiFi bridge, or a USB WiFi adapter) for the desktop. Turn on Internet Connection Sharing in XP, and you're good to go.

However, by doing this, you're essentially turning your desktop into a wireless router. It'll be just as much against school rules as a dedicated box from Linksys. It might not be significantly cheaper, either.

If that doesn't bother you, I'd be happy to provide more details on the setup. Just be aware that you'd be breaking the rules either way.
posted by Acetylene at 12:34 PM on April 29, 2004

You'll want to google for "ad-hoc" or "peer-to-peer" connection. This basically connects two computers using only their wireless cards. You might want to check with your school though, as this basically turns your desktop into the same sort of security hole they were trying to prevent by banning wireless routers.
posted by split atom at 12:36 PM on April 29, 2004

Ah--didn't see Ethereal Bligh's answer before I posted. The Bluetooth idea is a good one; if the school is looking for 802.11x signals they might overlook Bluetooth. Be aware of range issues, though: your 30-foot requirement matches the theoretical maximum of Class 2 Bluetooth, so you'd probably be better off hunting for a Class 1 device.
posted by Acetylene at 12:41 PM on April 29, 2004

Also, do try to think about why the school posted such a rule in the first place. It wasn't to be a bunch of beaurocratic meanies who want to make your life harder; it was because having any sort of wireless access point not directly overseen by the school's IT department represents a fairly non-trivial breach of security.

To put it simply, your school's IT department needs to control access to its network in order to keep evildoers out; they need it so that any connection to the network can be traced fairly easily back to an individual who can be held responsible for anything that goes down via that connection.

Open wireless access points (and at least right now there really is no such thing as a 'closed' wireless anything...) cannot be easily monitored, and anyone can zip in and bum a connection off of it without authenticating. Unless it's set up correctly, and obviously the IT department cannot take the risk of trusting every single student with a computer to take those necessary steps.

...and if you don't give a crap about your school's network being secure for some reason, then know that if someone was to tap into a wireless system you set up and do something nasty, it would probably be traced back to you, and you would be punished for it.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 2:18 PM on April 29, 2004

Oh, and not to be a complete stick in the mud: Bluetooth should work, as stated previously, but it doesn't have a superb range, so keep that in mind. And if you're seriously only going to be 30 feet away, maybe just get a nice long Ethernet cable and sling it out your window temporarily? : >
posted by cyrusdogstar at 2:21 PM on April 29, 2004

Augh. Another note, a clarification actually: the problem with WAPs is not really that the connection can't be traced, it's that they can't be certain who is actually on the other end of it. With your room's wired connection, they know that you're using it because (most likely, anyway) you registered the network jack at the start of the school year. It's tied to your name, and nobody else can plug in and use it.

Wireless access points act like a jack anyone can come along and plug into and get access--without registering their computer--and that's bad because it totally bypasses the IT department's attempt at locking access down. The traffic is still traceable (and as I pointed out, it's traceable to you because it goes through your jack) but they can't limit who uses it.

So Joe Hacker can drop by with his hacking machine, get on the University's private network and attack their machines from the inside; without that wireless running, he can't log in anywhere because the physical jacks won't let him without a University account.

I promise to shut up now :) Seriously.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 2:28 PM on April 29, 2004

Personally, I would just slap in a cheap AP and take it down when you're not using it. The chances of your school noticing are slim, most likely.
posted by angry modem at 3:43 PM on April 29, 2004

May I ditto CDS's counsel of a long ethernet cable? It's the first thing that occurred to me after you explained your application. While a little kludgey, it has the virtue of simplicity, along with the virtue of virtue.
posted by mojohand at 3:56 PM on April 29, 2004

Anything that encourages your school to grow into this century is probably more ethically laudable than your previous interlocutors would have you believe. ;-)
posted by stonerose at 6:54 PM on April 29, 2004

You can get a 100-meter Bluetooth dongle, which theoretically has the same range as WiFi. Those work great for Internet access to portable devices, although Bluetooth's speed tops out around 768Kbps as opposed to WiFi's 11Mbps. If you do go Bluetooth, I have had excellent results with the Belkin dongle, model F8T001.

It's a lot less likely to be noticed than WiFi, IMHO, and you will know immediately if anyone else ever tries to pair with it for Internet access.
posted by kindall at 10:04 PM on April 29, 2004