if you don't care about wireless privacy, then turn WEP off.
Sounds very much like you shouldn't have gone down the wireless route. People buy into wireless because it is so great (which it is!). IMHO it still provides woefully inadequate security.
WEP is probably the best security you're going to get (when combined with other techniques) and disabling it, without enabling other forms of privact protection, will leave your network open for anyone to access.
I really don't know what to suggest here. Ideally, you need to get someone at least semi-expert on wireless networking to come round your home and get everything set up properly for you. If WEP is a no-go due to incompatability with the DS, then you need to be enabling (at minimum) MAC address authentication (not a fun thing, takes away some of the ease of use of your wireless network) and IP authentication. These are things that will affect the configs of your PC, and any other equipment you want to connect wirelessley to your network.
I am no expert, I don't have any hands-on experience with WiFi at all (and won't have until they sort the standards out and I can replace my wired network). It may be entirely possible that your router can do WPA instead of WEP and that the DS will be compatible then.
if someone really wants to get into your network, they will do it, I don't care how much security you load onto it. WEP, WPA, MAC and IP authentication can all be bypassed (varying levels of difficulty, but nowehere near impossible).
I wish you all the best!
Sounds very much like you shouldn't have gone down the wireless route. People buy into wireless because it is so great (which it is!). IMHO it still provides woefully inadequate security.
WEP is probably the best security you're going to get (when combined with other techniques) and disabling it, without enabling other forms of privact protection, will leave your network open for anyone to access.
I really don't know what to suggest here. Ideally, you need to get someone at least semi-expert on wireless networking to come round your home and get everything set up properly for you. If WEP is a no-go due to incompatability with the DS, then you need to be enabling (at minimum) MAC address authentication (not a fun thing, takes away some of the ease of use of your wireless network) and IP authentication. These are things that will affect the configs of your PC, and any other equipment you want to connect wirelessley to your network.
I am no expert, I don't have any hands-on experience with WiFi at all (and won't have until they sort the standards out and I can replace my wired network). It may be entirely possible that your router can do WPA instead of WEP and that the DS will be compatible then.
if someone really wants to get into your network, they will do it, I don't care how much security you load onto it. WEP, WPA, MAC and IP authentication can all be bypassed (varying levels of difficulty, but nowehere near impossible).
I wish you all the best!