Good security practices for dorm life?

[DripplessNewt]

I will be living in the dorms this fall and plan to hook my devices up to the wifi (and if im lucky, an ethernet port). Certainly some risks associated with doing that but not many options. So what are my best options to keep everything safe and secure? 

[PowerPCFan]

2 minutes ago, DripplessNewt said:

I will be living in the dorms this fall and plan to hook my devices up to the wifi (and if im lucky, an ethernet port). Certainly some risks associated with doing that but not many options. So what are my best options to keep everything safe and secure? 

Can you use the Ethernet port to set up a router and make a new password-protected network? 

[da na]

Your school should have some sort of firewall on the network to prevent malicious action. 

Just disable network dicovery if you are worried.

[DripplessNewt]

10 minutes ago, PowerPCFan said:

Can you use the Ethernet port to set up a router and make a new password-protected network? 

There is not any stated rules against it, though thats assuming I get a room with an ethernet port. They are inconsistent on if they are there or not. 

[wanderingfool2]

if you are lucky enough to get one with an ethernet port [might as well just ask to see if they know before you arrive] then just try setting up a router [treat the ethernet port as the WAN].  That way you are pretty safe even if the dorm doesn't apply their firewalls correctly.

 

3 hours ago, da na said:

Your school should have some sort of firewall on the network to prevent malicious action. 

Just disable network dicovery if you are worried.

When I went through school there was one access point that they had forgotten to put security setting on [although maybe it was because we were CS students who needed to build networking apps as well] and we could have devices talk to each other without any issues.

 

 

Honestly though @DripplessNewt just set up your wifi as being a public wifi and Windows usually handles the rest quite well.  If you really wanted to though you could go to Windows Firewall and just setup firewalls to pretty much disable everything except the stuff you want.

[atarione]

If you folks are down /ok with it, If it was me I'd setup Open VPN on their router (or some other friend / relation) outside the college.    My router has a built in OpenVPN server so it was easy to set up.       I would then connect to the VPN when using wifi at the school (making sure to set the "redirect-gateway def1" in the config, to ensure all traffic uses the VPN rather than just traffic headed to the VPN server's network).

 

I connect my phone / laptop back to my home VPN when out and about using wifi on the go.   Some sites or apps may detect the VPN and not allow you to use them, for example Spectrum won't let me stream while I am connected to the VPN.

 

If that isn't possible then make sure it is set up as Public wifi as suggested before.