Is Nintendo DS wifi Safe?
Wow, someone sure did a good job of giving you the willies about using the net. Adding a DS to your network does not impact your security in any way that I can think of. All matches are set up through Nintendo’s servers, there is no difference in the risk between a friend code and a random match, as neither of them have any more risk than browsing the web or anything else you might do. As a closed, single-purpose design, the DS is far less vulnerable to attack than your PC. If you want to worry about your security, worry about the PC. Your DS is clean as a whistle, no matter how you use it. Disclaimer: Anything’s possible, but no-one has yet heard of what you’re worrying about happening, and if it happened, it would be big news in the geek press.
The Nintendo handset works only with WEP encryption. WEP encryption has been broken. It is now useless. If your network supports the DS, then any random passer-by can crack your network within 5 minutes. They can then use your connection to send spam and do otherwise illegal things, for which YOU will take the heat. You should switch to WPA, the new form of encryption, immediately. It will break the DS’ ability to go online at your house, but IMO, that’s not really an issue compared to going to court for music piracy or jail for hacking. If you have the technical chops, setting up a second wireless access point on a SEPARATE WIRE from your internal network would be possible… there are four outgoing TCP ports you have to open to the whole Net, and you have to allow all UDP traffic, both in- and out-bound. (the Nintendo wifi site has details in the FAQ). Outbound UDP isn’t too dangerous. All the nasty stuff I know of is carried via the standard TCP, which you would almost completely bl
