The unvarnished truth about unsecured Wi-Fi

CNet ^ | 11/01/2010 | Elinor Mills

[chaosagent]

Hope you take the letters to the post office, because you are more likely to get something stolen from your mailbox and used.

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Exactly. My daughter had a $80 check to the Water Co. stolen from her mailbox. They changed it to an $800 check to themselves and cashed it.

She’s never had a problem with her online banking.

[TChris]

For my WPA2 passphrase, I like to use the words to a song I like, with numbers and/or punctuation thrown in. It's secure and easy to remember too.

Password: More9Than8A7Feeling%

...for example.

[MikefromOhio]

My Samsung Galaxy S has that capability as part of the basic load.

All I have to do is enable my wifi connection and it immediately lists all of the networks within range.

[antiRepublicrat]

All I have to do is enable my wifi connection and it immediately lists all of the networks within range.

WiFiFoFum has a few more bells and whistles.

[Tolsti2]

http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/WPA_key/generator.php

I like to use that for my key. The max one.

Also, your SSID is factored in with that key to generate the real ‘hash’ that’s used, so don’t use a standarized SSDI. Anything 5 char long and non standard is ok, but I like 5 random chars.

Make sure you’re wired when you use that site and for safe measure I go in and randomly change a few characters. Nothing can be more secure now than that.

[SubGeniusX]

CTRL-F ... Schn ... yep there it is ... came here to post this. I currently run an Open Network at home in an apartment building ...

but if anyone missed it or passed it over in you post

Schneier on Security - My Open Wireless Network

This is a great alternate view to the OP

[zeugma]

CTRL-F ... Schn ... yep there it is ...

Too funny. You knew there'd be at least one mention eh?

[dfwgator]

There's truth in this article. I've seen unprotected networks in my neighborhood

I wish there was a way to filter out offensive SSID names, they are all over the place.

[Parthalan]

"All you need is a $5 chinese wok, a $10 wifi card, a few flatwashers and a drinking straw."

I used a 12" piece of duct pipe and less than $5 of electronics for my antenna.

[Parthalan]

"What about MAC filtering?
I authorize only two MAC numbers on my router, one for each laptop."

MAC addresses can be cloned. With a free sniffer utility I can find out your MAC address and clone it. Then I am in your network easier than finding a password.

[bert]

We travel and camp. We go sometimes to the parking lot of Comfort Inn to borrow the Wi Fi. After 10:00 in the morning, guests are gone and all ports are open. An antenna as described will allow us to park next door to do the borrowing and not be so obvious.

A permanent installation on top of my sprinter is being designed in the recesses of my subconscious as I type.

[FreedomPoster]

Steve Gibson rocks. I bought SpinRite 1.0 way back in the day.

[meyer]

All you need is a $5 chinese wok, a $10 wifi card, a few flatwashers and a drinking straw.

Anybody sell that as a kit? I hate shopping. :-)

On a more serious note, I'd love to have a good quality directional antenna with gain so that I can reach WiFi networks that would normally be out of range.

[meyer]

With a rock any idiot can bypass your door lock.

They'd have a little harder time bypassing the Mossberg. :-)

Of course, the folks that can wield the Mossberg aren't always around but one of them usually is.

[meyer]

Question for the security goo-roos:

My network is secured by WPA2-PSK, and the 4 or 5 other networks that my laptop sees now are also secured with WEP or some version of WPA. But there’s one that is not secure. It is my network, but it is labeled “my network name-guest” and is marked as unsecured. I can’t find anything on my linksys that pertains to a guest account setting.

Anybody know anything about this? I want it disabled, obviously.

[meyer]

Update - I disabled it (the “guest” account). Problem was with the software that came with the router. It allows you to turn on or off the guest account, but you can’t do it with the regular internet-type interface. To make matters worse, once you adjust certain things in the internet-based interface, the other software becomes inoperable. Had to jump through a few hoops (and got a little help on the Cisco forums) to get things straightened out.

I’m going to have to dig deeper into this security thing - I want the best security I can set up within reason.

[tang-soo]

I Watched Lord Of The Rings 2 Times Last Night!, which produces IWLORT2TLN!

It works especially well if you don't transpose two of the characters. (grin)