Turning Network Free-Riders' Lives Upside Down

An anonymous reader writes "You discover that your neighbours are using your unsecured wireless network without your permission. Do you secure it? Or do you do something more fun? A few minutes with squid and iptables could greatly improve your neighbours' Web experience ..." Improve is a relative term, but this is certainly gentler than certain other approaches.

Comments

Liability?

[lecithin]

What are the odds that a neighbor would use your network and then sue you for the content that your are sending to him?

Re:Goats

[Roody Blashes]

If you don't secure a wireless connection that spills onto other people's property, why shouldn't they use it until told otherwise? You could argue that you're not really encroaching, but I guarantee you that's not true. There's another network near us that was too weak to always show in the list of nearby nets, but was just strong enough to cause intermittent signal pollution until one day I happened to move the router to get at something else, and noticed it next time I connected.

If you let your signal spill over onto other people's space, too bad.

In fact, I wouldn't be mad if someone were using my connection without my approval unless they were encroaching on my space to do it. In fact, I only secured it because of bandwidth concerns and the potential for other people to use it for illicit purposes.

Should be legal

[gilroy]

In our topsy-turvy legal system, it might not be. :( But it should be. The nieghbors have no right to expect anything so they should have to just accept whatever the router sends them. As allegedly was said by Truman Capote:

The trouble with living outside the law is, you put yourself beyond its protection.

Re:Should be legal

[kfg]

Well, yes. That's what the word "outlaw" originally meant. It was a sentence, as punishment for a crime the law formally expelled you from its oversight. The hangers on could stone you as you left the proceedings and this act would be invisible to the law.

This is not at all the same thing as being a criminal, because a criminal still acts under the jurisdiction of the law.

In our topsy-turvy legal system we do not have outlaws, merely criminals. You may live counter to the law, but you cannot live outside it. The law is omnipresent.

Smile for the camera.

KFG

Missing the point, I think

[truedfx]

You discover that your neighbours are using your unsecured wireless network without your permission.

If your wireless network is unsecured, permission to use it is implied, and there are operating systems that will automatically use such networks, are there not?

getting biblical on the neighbours

[spyrochaete]

When my neighbour mooched my wireless I had a little fun with Cain & Abel. I got some good recipes from their private documents. Romano cheese really is better than parmesan on spaghetti!

You can have a lot of phun with this all-in-one cracker suite. Hell, if my neighbours had a MS-SQL server or Cisco switch I could have 0wned those too!

Secure?

[TCM]

He already uses the notion of trusted and untrusted networks, yet he makes no effort at all to prevent 1) spoofing 2) non-IP protocols 3) access from the untrusted network to his trusted network.

If you plan to take on others, make sure your own stuff is secure.

Open Networks

[Elektroschock]

sorry, I am a supporter of open networks. I think the freifunk olsr-protocol approach of open wireless networks is best. We don't need internet providers and we don't need internet provider which leak our communication data to the governments and endanger the freedom of the net. The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet.

I cannot support any action against people who use your network. It is against my understanding of hacker ethics. When you don't like it then close your network. But no childish games please.

I may even say that I find it unethical to exclude your neighbours from using your network but I respect your opinions. When your network is open it means: Be free to use it. Not: You can use it but I will fuck up or intercept your communication.

Sniff, sniff.

[bigtallmofo]

i'm far from expert on the subject, but if you are on the same subnet , sniffing should be trivial.

Sniffing has nothing to do with subnetting. It has very much to do with the hardware that connects you. If you're both connected to the same hub, you can see all of each other's traffic. If you're both connected to the same switch, you can't.

Note that as a Slashdot comment, this an extremely simplified explanation and not a complete picture.

Re:Goats

[jasen666]

That's exactly what I've setup at my wife's salon, where she has an open wireless for her customers. The office computers have full internet access, any wireless guests have their ports limited to the basics. The cheapy D-link router had this capability built-in, making it a no brainer.

Re:Goats

[ConceptJunkie]

Here's the proper analogy:

I put my garden hose in the street and leave it running 24/7. Is it stealing if you walk up and fill up a jug with water?

I asked a lawyer this once, and he said yes, but he's a jerk so I take it with a grain of salt.

Besides, the law is whatever the **AA buys.