Printer security in college dorm room

Hello Mrs:

Be sure the firewall in OS X is activated. I do not run wirelessly, so I do not know what additional features are available.

Barry

You'll want to ask for details in the Airport Express forum, but basically what you want to do is set the AE base station so that only her computer can connect wirelessly to the AE at all. That's good policy anyway and will prevent anyone else from using the printer unless, of course, they unplug it from the base station and connect it to their own computer, something you won't be able to prevent unless your stepdaughter locks up the printer.

Regards.

Some things to do would be to hide the SSID and use a fixed address instead of DHCP. You should be able to set it so that only she can connect to the Airport Express. Her computer will be recognized by the MAC address.

MAC address filtering should not be relied upon. It's not that difficult to detect and spoof a MAC address, and on a college campus there are bound to be a number of people who can do just that. There are more secure ways to lock down a wireless access point, though since I don't use an Airport myself I don't know the ins and outs of what the AE can do.

Regards.

The most reliable method is to turn the printer off when it's not in use.

Locking the dorm room door would be useful. Then no one will be able to turn the printer back on after you turn it off. Even if you forget to turn it off, no one is likely to use a printer from which they can't retrieve what they've printed.

Ah, nuts! Just hardwire the sucker and dispense with wireless.

Do 3 things:
1. Turn off DHCP and give her a static IP
2. Enable MAC filtering
3. Set a password for the Airport (WPA2/Personal)