Building a Mac/PC Network in a Dorm with Network Restrictions

Question

I have been a Windows XP user for the last few years, but I recently bought a 15'' MacBook Pro for research purposes. I would like to set up a no-hassle Mac/PC Network at home so that I can access the internet on both computers and hardware between computers (i.e. a harddrive, or a mouse/keyboard with Synergy).

Unfortunately, I live in a dorm with silly network restrictions so a solution is not straightforward. In particular:

• The dorm has a wired and wireless network, both which provide an internet connection.
• The wired network provides way faster internet (download speeds of 15 MB/s vs. 2 MB/s on wireless), so I would like to somehow exploit this, at least on my PC for Bittorrent :)
• Multiple devices can connect to the wireless network, but cannot "see" each other on the network (so software like Synergy would not work).
• Only 1 MAC address can connect to the wired network at a time.

Ideally I would just connect a wireless router to the wired network and then have both the Mac and the PC on that, but the 1 MAC address restriction will not allow the both computer to access the internet simultaneously. I cannot think of a way to bypass this restriction (though I'm not network savvy), so I am planning to create a private no-internet network to allow the devices to see each other and share hardware.

Here are some thoughts. I would appreciate any feedback at all!

If I build a private wireless network: (first choice)

• I will use a wireless router that is not connected to the internet. My PC and Mac will be connected to each other wirelessly. I can then connect the PC to the internet via a wired network, but then the Mac will not have internet access as its wireless card is already in use. In this case, could I stream internet access from the PC to the Mac via the wireless network? Or could I buy a USB wireless card for the Mac so that it can connect to both my private network and the dorm network?

If I build a private wired network: (second choice)

• Then both the PC and the Mac will connect to the internet wirelessly, which means I cannot take advantage of the faster download speeds.

Answer 1

If you use an actual wireless router (not an access point), your other devices' MAC addresses aren't exposed to the outside. It will appear (almost) as though there's just one device: Your router.

Answer 2

Use a wireless router. Only the router's MAC address is exposed on the network. I'm at UC Berkeley and we have a similar network setup. I recently purchased a Netgear WNDR3700 to connect to my wired network. I use DD-WRT firmware so I can expose my local network DNS-SD (aka Bonjour) services to the rest of the dorm network. This works really well for me.