Sharing printers - Security

Peter B

I travel a lot with my laptop and when I come home I want to use my Dad's printer without having to connect to it directly. My computer is wireless and connects to the internet wirelessly through the router. My Dad's computer is plugged in via ethernet connection to the same router.

My Dad's computer is connected to the printer directly. Aparently if I connect both computers together as a network I can easily share the printer with both computers. I am looking for how to connect each computer to a network. (Yes there are lots of tutorials on this but none that I can find which fully answer all of my questions)

I tried just going to start > printers and faxes. Right clicked on the printer I wanted to use from my laptop clicked properties and went to sharing. To enable the printer sharing it wanted me to set up a network. I have no problem with that until I get to the step (in the attached image).

From what I understand from that message anyone on the internet can access my shared files and use my printer. This is obviously not what I want as all I want is my computer and my dad's computer to access the printer. What are the security implications of this? Who really would be able to access the printer. If I allow shared folders who really would be allowed to access the files? If I go to a friends house and use their wireless internet, can they access my shared folder?

Thanks

Spear

Peter B wrote: »

I tried just going to start > printers and faxes. Right clicked on the printer I wanted to use from my laptop clicked properties and went to sharing. To enable the printer sharing it wanted me to set up a network. I have no problem with that until I get to the step (in the attached image).

From what I understand from that message anyone on the internet can access my shared files and use my printer. This is obviously not what I want as all I want is my computer and my dad's computer to access the printer. What are the security implications of this? Who really would be able to access the printer. If I allow shared folders who really would be allowed to access the files? If I go to a friends house and use their wireless internet, can they access my shared folder?

If you're behind a router than it's extremely unlikely that anyone on the rest of the internet can see your printer, unless you've done something specific like put yourself in the DMZ or forwarded the needed ports.

Peter B

Spear wrote: »

If you're behind a router than it's extremely unlikely that anyone on the rest of the internet can see your printer, unless you've done something specific like put yourself in the DMZ or forwarded the needed ports.

No thought that was very unlikely also. I'm just worried about security with all of these things. When I set up a shared folder does that allow anyone who is on a network wireless network to access my shared files???

If I'm in Macdonalds does that mean that other users with a laptop have access to my shared files?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid.....

Spear

Peter B wrote: »

No thought that was very unlikely also. I'm just worried about security with all of these things. When I set up a shared folder does that allow anyone who is on a network wireless network to access my shared files???

If I'm in Macdonalds does that mean that other users with a laptop have access to my shared files?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid.....

Your laptop will normally announce it's shares to whoever's connected on it's local network. Public wifi points will normally have isolation turned on so there's no communications between the separate client machines. Though bear in mind it's possible to create an ad-hoc mode network between wifi enabled PC's.

If in doubt just unshare the printer, it's only a 2 second thing to do.