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As hubs broadcast traffic without loyalty - therefore sending packets "all over the shop" - intercepting packets is incredibly simple. You can download a bijillian (I know!) programmes to do this - most famously the notorious *COUGHS Two Biblical characters COUGHS* programme. This means Windows, e-mail and non-secure online passwords can be captured either in raw form or in an encoded form which can be later resolved by a *COUGHS* attack.
Then again, you can do the same with most non-industry routers via ARP poisoning - especially on a home network.
But honestly - do you really care if your flatmates can see the porn sites you've visited? :D
As for set up - you share, as the previous posts stated, a connection. You do this by setting up the main computer (the one connected to the internet) to share net connection. You do this via your dial-up and network connections within conrtol panel (assuming you're using windows).
Start>> Control Panel >> Dial Up and Network connections >> Local area network ?? >> TCP/IP >> Properties
You can either set up your network as class a,b or c. Microsoft usually uses C which is 192.168.0.* When you set up to share the connection sharing will make your Internal IP 192.168.0.1. On the next ccomputer you set the IP address to 192.168.0.2 and the default gateway to 192.168.0.1 and so on. Subnet mask isn't important - set them all for 255.255.255.0.
If it asks you for DNS (the system which resolves domain names to their IP addresses and vice versa) you'll need to check your ISP website for them.
Personally if it's an RJ45 (network cable instead of USB) connection you're probably easier using a router. It's not that much more expensive. The problem with the setup above (i.e. a hub) is that the main computer has to be on all the time to maintain the connection - this is not necessary with a router.
Good luck! :)
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On hindsight the words "No buy a cheap netgear router would probably have been sufficient" :D
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Tedob1 has a really valid point I missed. Should have thought of it, but didnt.
Keep in mind thou, a router is likely to be more stable.
Cheers!
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People, you are forgeting one thing. Router is just gateway with one connection to the ISP and one connection to home network. But lately you can buy router and hub/switch in one box. That is "router" that all of you here are talking about.
Another option is this. One box will be software router (ICS will do, but you can use WinGate or anything else). With hub you connect software router with other boxes on home network. This give you more options, but require more knowledge how to secure everything.
There is also option that you connect hub/switch directly to the ISP, but you will have to purchase IP addresses for all of your boxes, and secure them separately.
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Cheap routers such as netgear come with a four port hub as standard. It has become a retailing norm for home routers. I don't think anyone wants a full scale cisco "mo-fo" for this little adventure ;)
You only need individual IP addresses if you are going the NAT route - i.e. each computer has a seperate static IP. However most people set up their routers via no-NAT where the ISP connection feeds into the router which in-turn assigns internal IP addresses to each of the machines (10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 etc)
