[longgonesam]

I recently purchased a new macbook pro and kept my macbook for my wife. I get my internet through my cellphone and Verizon broadband. I am using the Pro as my "base station" and sharing my internet with the macbook via "internet sharing"/ airport. I can't seem to locate any info on the riskiness of this, or not, and can't seem to figure out how to initiate WPA or anything else for that matter as protection. I live in a very rural area and am reasonably certain there's low risk of any crackers close by. What about VPN? Is that something I should be considering? I guess a risk assessment under this setup is first and then any mitigating actions next. Feeling vulnerable and the more i research the more confused i get, and the more vulnerable......perhaps unwarranted?

MacBook, 2.1Ghz, 2gb, OSX 10.5.6
MacBook Pro 2.5, 4gb, 10.5.6

[dcpics]

You shouldn't have too much to worry about if you are isolated, but you may want to consider one of the cell-modem routers made by Cradlepoint so you are not sharing through the one computer and you will add in some more firewall options such as allowing only specific MAC addresses so it's harder for someone to get on your network. Since you have only two computers it should not be a problem to go to that level of security.

Using a router like that will also give you more range in your home for the computers to move around and be used in different rooms.