[Gllug] News: Two cautioned over WiFi theft

[Ryan Cartwright]

Richard Jones wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 09:53:45AM +0100, Peter Childs wrote:
>> How about telling your router only to hand access (ie dhcp) out to
>> known wifi mac addresses. Ie totally open Wifi if the router knows
>> your mac address. No good for visitors but then visitors can always
>> talk to you and you can add the relevant mac using the routes config
>> page. [...]
> 
> An attacker can trivially sniff MAC addresses, and change their own
> MAC address to match.  In fact any sensible attacker does this anyway
> in order to cover their tracks in case someone is logging MAC
> addresses.  The only thing this buys you is user confusion and
> configuration hassles.
> 

Whilst I agree that wifi-security is a bit of an oxymoron I would have
thought that, at the very least, implementing WEP plus MAC checking
would make it hard for the "terrorist" in the car to circumvent this and
still claim it was accidental.

Granted this is of no help if your network is compromised but if the FBI
turn up (with HM Gov's approval of course) then at least you can claim
you did all you could to stop someone else accidentally using it. Hang
on - that might make them assume that means it had to be you who was
surfing bushisstupid.com :o)

I have 128bit WEP and MAC address restriction on my home wifi as it's
about the best I can do. Also there are a couple unrestricted APs in my
local neighbourhood so I figure the "terrorist" wanting to surf
ihatebush.com will take the path of least resistance. :o)

cheers
Ryan
-- 
Ryan Cartwright
http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss
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