[Chester LUG] WiFi Terror

john veedub at linuxmail.org
Wed Jul 13 19:38:22 UTC 2011


On 13/07/11 20:22, Sebastian Arcus wrote:
> Hmm - I don't know. Wherever I go - business or domestic - I enable 
> WPA2. Whatever doesn't want to play with it, whatever the reason - 
> gets binned. Short and sweet - no excuses. By binned of course I mean 
> either binned or used off the network.
>
> The level of compatibility these days with WPA2 is high enough to not 
> put up with going back to anything else.
>
> And for those mentioning BT routers - well, I don't know how you would 
> expect anything from those pieces of *$%^&. Any equipment that comes 
> preconfigured from ISP to create additional wifi networks and share my 
> own broadband connection with others (while essentially re-selling the 
> bandwidth I have already paid for) deserves nothing but a sledge hammer.
>
> Sorry - I must be in an intransigent mood today.
>
> Sebastian
      Bt internet....when you have long enough I will tell you the story!
John Greenwood
>
>
> On 13/07/11 16:38, Michael Crilly wrote:
>> Nothing surprises me these days.
>>
>> On 13/07/11 16:29, Les Pritchard wrote:
>>> You've hit the nail on the head there security vs convenience. I have
>>> been to so many companies who use WEP because they know it will work
>>> with all devices. They also use a simple key as something longer is
>>> just harder to type :-)
>>>
>>> I've also spoken to home users who use WEP, or nothing at all as
>>> they've had problems connecting consoles to WPA2. Very scary.
>>>
>>> On 13 July 2011 16:24, Michael Crilly <mrcrilly at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:mrcrilly at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     I believe WPA is backwards compatible with WEP enabled hardware
>>>     (but not WPA2 as the chipsets can't do the processing). WPA is an
>>>     improvement over WEP as it uses better encryption, it doesn't
>>>     directly use master keys and it's IV has been increased to 48,
>>>     from 24, and as such you have trillions of key combinations,
>>>     instead of about 17 million. WPA2 requires completely new hardware.
>>>
>>>     I think ISPs should be taking on the responsibility of ensuring
>>>     people's security, as far as wireless technology at home goes,
>>>     anyway. This can be done by shipping wireless routers with only
>>>     WPA2 enabled, minimum key requirements and a decent password
>>>     policy on the router's administration panel, etc. That being said
>>>     it can't be too easy as you end up sacrificing security for
>>>     convenience, which is never good.
>>>
>>>
>>>     On 13/07/11 16:15, Bryn Salisbury wrote:
>>>
>>>         The question for me is whether or not older units in
>>>         circulation have been updated to support WPA2. I know that
>>>         there are still a load of 1st generation BT Home Hubs out
>>>         there which still work on WEP, and the other question is how
>>>         often people update their wifi passwords (I bet most
>>>         provider-issued devices are still set to their factory
>>>         WEP/WPA2 keys).
>>>
>>>         Buzz Out Loud did a long segment about Wifi routers a few
>>>         weeks ago, and my recent (painful) experience trying to
>>>         reconfigure my own HomeHub made me wonder how many 'normal'
>>>         people actually look (or even know they should look) at such
>>>         things?
>>>
>>>         B
>>>
>>>         On 13 Jul 2011, at 16:10, Michael Crilly wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>             Mind you most residential gateways come with WPA2 as
>>>             standard now (the article was a few years back), so
>>>             hopefully this will not be as easy to do.
>>>
>>>             On 13/07/11 16:08, Les Pritchard wrote:
>>>
>>>                 Yes that's a great story, there's a lot of this going
>>>                 on sadly. If you've upset anyone - don't use WiFi :-)
>>>
>>>                 On 13 July 2011 15:23, Michael
>>>                 Crilly<mrcrilly at gmail.com <mailto:mrcrilly at gmail.com>>
>>>                 wrote:
>>>                 I've just started reading this on Arstechnica:
>>>                 
>>> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/wifi-hacking-neighbor-from-hell-gets-18-years-in-prison.ars
>>>                 - quite scary! It just goes to show you what you can
>>>                 do with some tools off of the Internet and some basic
>>>                 knowledge.
>>>
>>>                 This could be a story for your company's website, 
>>> Les ;-)
>>>
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>>>         --
>>>         Bryn Salisbury
>>>         http://about.me/bryns/bio
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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