Unsecured Wi-fi

[WizardofOz]

The other day I was reading an online news article about unsecured wireless internet (wi-fi) in peoples homes. Basically the article said that unsecured routers let anyone just drive uip in front of their house on a public street with a wi-fi nabled device and use your internet connectipon. The main problem with that is othersdownloading pirated movies or music are using your connection and if/when the industry start a lawsuit against the user, the lawsuit will be against the person having the wireless router because that is where the IP address shows having ownership.

Anyhow, I thought it would be interesting to see if the article held any water so I took my wi-fi enabled phone for a drive down a couple of streets in Dodge City. I was ableto see so many unsecured routers with internet connectipons just open for anyone to use. On top of that, a person could start hacking comiputers linked to the router on a workgroup. In one instance, my phone found 5 of them on one block (won't say which one). Moral of the story is if you have a wireless internet router in your home, take the extra few minutes to secure it.

[Highwayman]

The hacking can be for ID theft, passwords, account numbers and so on.

[Bubba]

Well said!

[Detector]

I have done a bit of War Driving myself and yes there are hundreds of unsecured wireless networks all over. I think the biggest problem is most people buy a wireless router(access point) from Wal*Marts, plug it in and never bother to change the default password. Everybody has the same default password so you know what it is if you buy one.

Hackers use these unsecured connections to send out Trojans, viruses and to obtain personal information. IF a hacker decides to use your network to crack into say a bank or ATM then it gets traced back to you.

[Tee]

Fortunately though.. The legal experts are catching up to this abuse and the "open wireless" excuse has been used successfully in legal cases that relate to child pornography and other malicous deeds. All routers keep a log of client connections which shows the computername and mac address of the connected PC. You can find it in the log page if you know how to login to the router. Still doesn;t protect you from getting your door smashed in when a violator is supected, which is what happened a few weeks ago in Seattle? if my memory serves me correct. In that case it was found by looking at the client log in the router that someone had connected to the suspects open wireless network without the suspeects knowledge. So, there are tracks that would show this. One exception to this would be doing a hard reset on the router, which clears the log. Most people don't know how to do that though.

A friend of mine got a router the other day and didn;t secure it. I led him through securing it over the phone. Keep in mind that there are so many different levels of security bundled into routers these days, virtually all of which can still be comprimised by the very savviest of hackers. That being said, hackers will usually not bother with one that employs even the most vunerable of security methods, simply because, as you say, there are many open unsecured networks on the same block that they can join with little effort.

I used to join networks all the time when I am out running my calls. I have found several hotspots that I can sync up my laptop with. I only used them for legitimate purposes like checking email, looking for new service calls, etc. I figured if they are going to broadcast the free internet, then I could sure use it. I don't do it anymore simply because I have a sprint device now that gives me a much broader signal via cell towers.

[Detector]

Here is a test

Go to START and then RUN and type CMD then click OK. At the prompt type ipconfig and hit the enter key. This will tell you what your computers address is. I can guess it probably.

IP Address: 192.168.1.100
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1


This is 98% of the information needed to hack your computer. If you have not changed your routers default password I now know the other 2% needed to hack you.

[Tee]

yeah, most linksys routers (the most common router) are blank/admin
some dlinks are dlink and some are blank

doesn't take much to get in and take control of your network if you've left everything at default. I would guess more than half the systems out there are at default settings. You would think the manufactures of routers would smarten up and popup a guided tour that would take you through setting up a unique password/login and security at startup, but they haven't for some odd reason.

[lurker]

Any additional step to successful installation increases the chances of a customer interface... with an East Indian. They KISS it knowing that other's will cover their asses later.

[Outofdodge]

Originally Posted by Tee

You would think the manufactures of routers would smarten up and popup a guided tour that would take you through setting up a unique password/login and security at startup, but they haven't for some odd reason.

You would think that in this day and age of privacy anyone getting a network would know better too.

Then again I've twice had neighbors knock on my door wanting to know my home network's encryption so they could access the internet.....sheesh.

[Tee]

LOL!!!

You gotta be sheetin me? Tell em to go get there own internet!!

Then again, you could charge for access as so long as you secured your lan PC's.