Internet connection sharing question

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Rentagosa

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Hoping a technically familiar bomber can help me out. The WiFi internet connection at my work is MAC address restricted (I think). I have a company issued laptop that allows me to use their WiFi, but I have a lot of personal devices I like to use that make my job easier than the crappy ass laptop they provide. I want these other devices (iPads, other laptops, and smartphone so I don’t have to use my limited monthly data). So far, I have been sharing the WiFi internet signal from my company laptop through an Ethernet cable into my MacBook and then using the macbook’s WiFi sharing to share the signal to everything else. This works well, but it’s kind of a pain in the ass if I just need to hop on the iPad real quick for something, so I’m looking for an alternative method.

I can’t share the company laptop signal wirelessly because the WiFi card is already in use. I’m thinking I could get a cheap WiFi router, enable internet connection sharing of the WiFi signal via Ethernet, and plug the Ethernet into the WAN port on the router; effectively creating my own personal, permanent little hotspot. Will this work? Also, when I share the connection via Ethernet to my MacBook, the Mac has internet access even with the company laptop closed; a function I’d like to keep. Would a router keep sharing the connection in the same way?

Or perhaps there’s a better solution? Any ideas would be great, thanks! (I tried Buffalo WEX-1166 DHPS since it has an Ethernet port, but that seems to only be an input and can’t be used as an access point mode)

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icoangel

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Wouldn't the simplest solution be too ask IT to set up wifi on your other devices?

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bizmarkiefader

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#3  Edited By bizmarkiefader

If your IT department is restricting who can connect based on MAC addresses, then the idea is they don't want untrusted devices on the network. Bridging it through any of those sharing setups is likely a security vulnerability, so I wouldn't let IT see you doing that if they're strict about that kind of stuff. We just set up our network at my job and what we did was create another wireless network specifically for people's random devices that could only talk to the internet and not anything else in the building. Not really knowing what you do or how serious the information on your company's internal network is, I would recommend being very, very careful about setting up your own router and adding a new wifi network. If I saw someone in this building doing anything like what you're doing and exposing our network like that I would be extremely upset.

Usually there is some kind of guest network, especially if you have clients or other people coming into the building with their laptops that you presumably wouldn't want to block from the internet but don't want on your network either. Is there no guest wifi? If not, you should talk to IT and probably not tell them what you're doing but ask if there is any way to get your devices on the internet.

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Rentagosa

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Thanks for the advice. None of the information on the network is really a target for anyone. So much so, that it’s almost comical to think of someone hacking in for a look. We don’t really have a permanent IT department, unfortunately. Thanks anyways guys/girls!

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Dayve86

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If your organization restricts this access it's at their discretion. Either request it through the official channels or don't do it at all. You may want to look into the term Shadow IT and how it can be a fireable offense.

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bizmarkiefader

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@rentagosa: If that's true, you should really just get rid of the MAC based whitelist since you're going to build a tunnel right under it anyway. It feels weird someone would go through the trouble of setting that up and maintaining it and then they wouldn't care to see a rogue router broadcasting wifi for untrusted devices on their network.

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soulcake

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The ye'old security by obscurity.