Posted on 11/01/2010 9:50:50 PM PDT by Wooly
Chances are you don't leave your front door unlocked. And you shouldn't leave your Wi-Fi network unsecured either.
Many of you may have heard this before, but many still seem to not be doing anything about it. You should. Here's why. With a $50 wireless antenna and the right software a criminal hacker located outside your building as far as a mile away can capture passwords, e-mail messages, and any other data being transmitted over your network, and even decrypt data that is supposedly protected.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
Hope you take the letters to the post office, because you are more likely to get something stolen from your mailbox and used.
She’s never had a problem with her online banking.
Password: More9Than8A7Feeling%
...for example.
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.
WiFiFoFum has a few more bells and whistles.
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.
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
Too funny. You knew there'd be at least one mention eh?
I wish there was a way to filter out offensive SSID names, they are all over the place.
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.
Steve Gibson rocks. I bought SpinRite 1.0 way back in the day.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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