Warnings on woeful wi-fi security

[Simon M]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4335777.stm

[zoombini]

I can't wait till I get a laptop, I'll be out trawling for them all.. lol

[zovat]

I drove to work the other morning with my Axim plugged in running TomTom - I forgot to switch of the WiFi on it, and it detected 6 networks in the 3 miles from me to the M3 - 4 of those were unencrypted !!!!!
I really should get out more

[zoombini]

OK, so we find an unencrypted network, can we then easily join it & how?

[altis]

Peeps have been Warchalking for years:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=war-chalking

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by zoombini

OK, so we find an unencrypted network, can we then easily join it & how?

Very easily!

If you using XP's Wireless Manager (and probably others) and there is a wifi router with 'out-of-the-box' (in)security, you will get an IP address and be able to access the internet and potentially any unsecure computers on that network!!
Quite scary really!
__________________

A colleague and I were waiting to pick up our kids once and his ipaq picked up a Linksys wireless network 50m from the nearest house. Didn't have time to hack it properly, but we could probably have logged in to the router admin page ...

[Rob]

I can well understand why so many use the default settings, after all how many know much more than how to switch on their PC. An awful lot of smaller firms won't have IT trained staff. Bigger firms just get lazy.

Even so, enabling wifi security is not that straightforward. Spent tow hours last night trying to get a wireless bridge to work with my existing network, all because some of the security settings set up on the access point weren't accessible on the same manufacturer's bridge

[handyman]

I was been driven through lincoln the other week and theres hundreds of un-protected wireless networks all named belkin, linksys , wireless etc. Must have beem 1 in 10 that where protected. :shock: