GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Wireless Security

Having installed your new wireless router you should really now enable its security features. By default, most wireless routers have security features disabled, so that your neighbours, and possibly anyone driving past, will be able to connect to your wireless router and help you use up your broadband quota!

The current recommended security mode for home and small office use is WPA-PSK (Wireless Protected Access with a Pre-Shared Key). This mechanism uses a pass phrase of between 8 and 63 characters (some sentence that is easy for you to remember, for example). You tell the router what the pass phrase is, and then when anyone attempts to connect to your router they will need this same passphrase. The connecting computer will encrypt the passphrase so that others can not easily eavesdrop on it, and if it matches the passphrase of the router, you will be allowed to connect!

The standard encryption is TKIP but AES is becoming available also.