Study: Wi-Fi users Still Don't Encrypt

Shackleford writes "SecurityFocus has an article saying that two days of electronic eavesdropping at the 802.11 Planet Expo in Boston last week sniffed out more evidence that most Wi-Fi users still aren't securing their networks. Security vendor AirDefense set up two of its commercial 'AirDefense Guard' sensors at opposite corners of the exhibit hall at the Boston World Trade Center, the site of the conference, and for two days analyzed the traffic flowing between conference-goers and 141 unencrypted access points set up by the conference for public use, and by vendors on the floor. What they found was that users checking their e-mail through unencrypted POP connections vastly outnumbered those using a VPN or another encrypted tunnel. Only three percent of e-mail downloads were encrypted on the first day of the conference, 12 percent on the second day."

Comments

WEP is weak

[Anonymous Coward]

First post through my neighbor's compromised WAP gateway. Off to view some porn now. :-)

Re:WEP is weak

[Golias]

Humour aside, probabky won't be long before we have spam wagons. Spammers in converted trucks crusing the highways to find wireless access points for spamming.

That would be awesome! It would mean that once in a while, an actual spammer would be parked out in front of my house, so they would be in close enough proximity for me to run out and beat the living shit out of them.

Please spammers, I'm begging you. Try this tactic.

Re:WEP is weak

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you use? I get very good results with an outdated Redhat installation and an SSID which indicates a default AP setup. Sometimes I set the SSID to a woman's name to bait geeks, but you have to throw those back because they don't reproduce very actively.

Re:WEP is weak

[JDWTopGuy]

There's not a jury in the land that would convict you.

What about an Amish one?

Re:WEP is weak

[zcat_NZ]

You're telling me the Amish don't get spam?

where do I sign up!!!?

At least ...

[Gendhil]

9% of attendees learned something from the expo. :)

Re:At least ...

[darth_silliarse]

...the other 91% were playing Quake 3 Arena

That's it!

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just make it illegal to run an unencrypted wifi network. It might be argued that it's a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it's amazing how many people and businesses will suddenly wake up once fines start being issued.

Jeez...

[Faust7]

Next thing you know, people will be failing to apply patches.

Arriving clue

[HBI]

Is it possible that most people don't give a shit about encrypting their e-mail because the contents of their e-mail are so inane and you can't trust the intervening steps?

I mean really - if I want secure transfer of information i'm not going to use e-mail. The effort wasted securing it is truly wasted effort, in my view, because of the lack of a trusted MTA. I don't trust my ISP. They can read this shit. So can every other transit point. Do you? Don't you feel somewhat foolish for admitting that?

I secure my IM. End-to-end encryption at least has a point there.

That being said, the article seems to lack point - expecting 'more people' to do something that is fundamentally pointless.

Re:Wi-Fi?

[anthony_dipierro]

I'm amazed that people still use unencrypted anything over the Internet (well, except http. I don't really care if someone knows I read /.)

What do you care if someone reads your spam?