Tivo and Weak Security
We've been using a D-Link 802.11G wireless network adapter with our Series 2 Tivo for the last 6 months with little difficulty. However, Tivo doesn't seem to understand that the Wired Equivalence Privacy (WEP) has a weak authentication mechanism and has long been replaced by the Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) standard. We'd like to use WPA, but are stuck using WEP until Tivo makes the move.
Yesterday, I became fed up with the wireless support in Tivo and purchased a USB Ethernet adapter to provide the Tivo with a wired connection to our broadband router. This will provide the Tivo with a secure wired connection, and allow us to upgrade the security on the wireless network to use WPA 2. The network adapter I ordered is the Netgear FA120. It has received good reviews on Amazon and was reasonably priced ($25).
The other solution I was considering was to buy another wireless router that could be configured to use a low grade of security (WEP), and use our existing wireless router to provide a high grade of security (WPA) while connected to a switch port on the low-security router. This was too complex and expensive to implement. It would have meant spending at least $40 on the access point. Also, an additional access point represents one more system to secure and configure. Purchasing a wired Ethernet adapter was a much simpler and secure solution.