[Chester LUG] WiFi Terror

Wed Jul 13 19:52:22 UTC 2011

Oh don't get me wrong, I will always move people (normally willingly once
I've explained the dangers!) to WPA2. I had one person tell me someone had
complained that their Windows 98 system wouldn't connect. Think we know the
answer to that one!

As for BT....yes what can we say! I've not done any testing of a BT
connection, would someone using BT Fon take bandwidth from the owner of the
connection? Or do they reserve a permanent percentage for them at all times?
In that case you're not getting the full potential from your connection.

On 13 July 2011 20:22, Sebastian Arcus <shop at open-t.co.uk> 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
>
>
>
> 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<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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