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Drive-By Hacking in London

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

delibes writes "The BBC News website carries this story about hacking wireless networks in London's financial centre. " There isn't really much in the way of details, just saying that many businesses don't encrypt their networks. They talk about finding 12 networks while driving 1km... 8 of which had no encryption.

1 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Read the article by strags · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll concede it's a little light on the technical details, but don't forget that this article is targetted at Joe Public.

    I think you missed the most revealing fact in the article: 8 out of 12 networks detected were not even using 802.11 encryption at all. Yes, we all know that 802.11 encryption is not secure, but the fact that people are broadcasting unencrypted packets does mean that the networks are incredibly insecure. I'm thinking of SMB, POP3, TELNET, FTP, or any other number of services that transmit either plaintext or weakly encrypted passwords.

    Yes, people should use VPNs, but the point of the article was that they're not.

    Also, "war driving" and "war pedalling" are actual, legitimate terms - I've seen them used on many occasions before, as would you, had you researched this at all before spouting off.