Concerned about "Piggybackers".

[andyandy]

While you're at it - setting up security (if not already done) make sure that you change the routers default admin password too.

[Hom3r]

Another simple solution, if your router has a 'Attached Devices' option check what devices are connected.

You should know what devices are yours.

[Ed2020]

Originally Posted by darkm

Static ip as in, assign ip's through your router to each mac. Yes Virgin use dynamic which rarely changes anyway but with the router options use a lan ip setup with Mac address filtering as well.

Whilst I don't dispute that there are benefits, in some circumstances, to assigning static IPs on the LAN I can see few (if any) benefits from a security perspective. And I've no idea what it has to do with the way VM allocate IPs to devices on their network...

Originally Posted by darkm

Wpa/2 is secure with a good password. For the casual "piggybacker" your network will be secure.

With a strong password it will be secure against determined hackers as well as casual piggybackers.

Originally Posted by darkm

The Mac address filtering is a good backup as well if someone did happen to gain access to your network by bruteforcing the password.

If it's a good password it won't be crackable in a realistic timescale with a bruteforce attack. Quote from http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2724

"For example, a 15 character password made up of uppercase, lowercase, digits and common punctuation is highly resistant to a brute-force attack. Even at the rate of 100,000,000 password attempts a second, cracking that could take 3.5 x 10^12 years."

Anyone with the patience and the technology to bruteforce a good WPA2 password (if such a person existed) will find MAC spoofing incredibly trivial to circumvent. In this situation it provides no backup whatsoever - nobody is going to go to the trouble of cracking a WPA2 password and then give up when they see there's MAC filtering to workaround.

Originally Posted by darkm

My advice dont listen to the scare mongering that it still not safe..
Lets face nothing is really safe, anything can be cracked given time and money....

WPA2 is secure. It's certainly secure enough for any home network. MAC filtering offers no meaningful additional security. True, anything can be cracked given enough time, but with WPA2 we're not talking months, or even years. With current technology it would take substantially longer than the universe has existed for.

[Horace]

It could be that the op is being forced to disconnect to allow data for the dictionary attack to occur, however as Ed mentioned, using a random password with WPA or WPA2 is enough
I also agree that MAC filtering is useless and probably dangerous, giving a false sense of security : http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=43&tag=col1;post-127 , number one in the list of six dumbest ways of securing a wireless network.

I use a 32 character randomly generated key and keep it on a USB key and transport that between computers while setting them up. It's worth noting that a ten character password would take 400~ years to crack with a single PC. Never use christian/surnames either as keys since there's plenty of dictionary lists that have comprehensive coverage of names.

http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/.../generator.php is a WPA key generator if you don't feel random enough ~

[rogerdraig]

i never secure my connection and rarely get any one on it BUT if you don't want people on there just follow the security set up guide for your router they are mostly fairly easy to follow with the hardest part being deciding on your password

long password and frequent changes too

there are some rather easy to use programs out there that can break these codes rather quicker than that 400 years

[Ed2020]

Originally Posted by rogermevans

long password and frequent changes too

there are some rather easy to use programs out there that can break these codes rather quicker than that 400 years

What 400 years? The only timescale that I can see in this thread is in my previous post, which is 3.5 * 10 to the power of 12 years. That's an awful lot longer than 400 years.

And what programs? WEP is relatively easy to crack (although still more difficult than MAC filtering) because the alorithm used to generate the encryption keys is borked. WPA2, which is what most people are recommending, is as far as I know still considered secure.

If you know of software that can crack WPA without using a bruteforce approach (which would be the only way of doing it in a reasonable time period with current (and probably future) technology) I'd like to know. Examples please!

Ed

[Horace]

Originally Posted by Ed2020

If you know of software that can crack WPA without using a bruteforce approach (which would be the only way of doing it in a reasonable time period with current (and probably future) technology) I'd like to know. Examples please!

Ed

The poster is probably referring to Elcomsoft wifi key recovery software which uses the GPU and distributed computing to brute-force, a 10 character or greater key would still take a very long time to crack and probably wouldn't be worth the effort since there's so many people still running WEP or using dictionary attackable WPA pass-phrases.

[Ed2020]

Originally Posted by Horace

The poster is probably referring to Elcomsoft wifi key recovery software which uses the GPU and distributed computing to brute-force, a 10 character or greater key would still take a very long time to crack and probably wouldn't be worth the effort since there's so many people still running WEP or using dictionary attackable WPA pass-phrases.

If so then they should read the article I referenced in my last but one post - that is the software it talks about.

Ed.

[Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by rogermevans

i never secure my connection

Silly Man. I could come to near your house and download tonnes of kiddy porn should I wish thanks to your insecure WiFi network.

Silly man and you would never know until the Police smash down your door.

Silly man indeed.

Fantastic advice!

WTP

[xpod]

Originally Posted by Waldo Pepper

Silly Man. I could come to near your house and download tonnes of kiddy porn should I wish thanks to your insecure WiFi network.

Silly man and you would never know until the Police smash down your door.

Silly man indeed.

Fantastic advice!

WTP

Possibly even sharing a couple of folders you could easily hide some handy copies in eh

[rogerdraig]

Originally Posted by Waldo Pepper

Silly Man. I could come to near your house and download tonnes of kiddy porn should I wish thanks to your insecure WiFi network.

Silly man and you would never know until the Police smash down your door.

Silly man indeed.

Fantastic advice!

WTP

and ?

1 no mater what people try to tell you you wont be responsible unless it can be shown you knew they were doing so

2 if tons was being downloaded i would soon notice when i checked the modem logs

3 as i have loads of computers coming and going i really cant be bothered to have to set it up for each one


and BT think its a great idea http://www.btfon.com/

[colin25]

I must confess..I was a piggybacker once..several times in fact

I blame my youth, and my parents.

And of course, everyone did it, you got bored..someone shouted "war"
Next thing you know, if you were lucky, someone jumps on your shoulders and fighting ensued.

i'm not going to apologise..I enjoyed..