6 Burning Questions About Wireless Networks

alphadogg writes "Answers to wireless network questions such as: What impact will 802.11n have? Which wireless security threats are scariest? What of wireless VoIP? Will your organization need to change to support enterprise mobility? How do you control costs in an expanding mobile and wireless environment? What can you do to stop wireless denial-of-service attacks?"

Comments

My question

[CastrTroy]

Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? I got a Wii a couple weeks ago, and used the wireless part of my wireless router for the first time. Setup of WPA was very easy. I also found about 5 other open networks that I could have connected my Wii to. I find it amazing that people are leaving their connections open when setting up a secure connection is so easy.

Re:My question

[dattaway]

Those open connections are just part of the redundancy of the internet. And the next time RIAA come knocking on our door, we just point fingers again.

Re:My question

[morgan_greywolf]

Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? I got a Wii a couple weeks ago, and used the wireless part of my wireless router for the first time. Setup of WPA was very easy. I also found about 5 other open networks that I could have connected my Wii to. I find it amazing that people are leaving their connections open when setting up a secure connection is so easy.

Is it up to Microsoft to require people to use secure passwords? Is it up to Oracle to require people with sensitive data to use the data encryption features of Oracle? Is it up to the postfix authors to require people to not run open mail relays?

As always, security is left up to those running the system. Similarly, wireless network security is up to those running the network. You can't force people to be secure. All you can do is strongly encourage it.

Re:My question

[PhoenixFlare]

I think many people just don't realize how far the range on some of these devices reaches - or they just automatically assume it will be stopped by the windows/wall/floor/etc.

I had the same experience when I got my Wii - it picked up probably 6 or 7 networks within my condo building, with probably 3 or 4 of those unsecured. Even my DS still manages to pick up 2 or 3 other networks from elsewhere in the building.

Re:My question

[danbert8]

Yes, but when you start Windows for the first time, it asks you to set a password. When you plug in your router, it does not ask you to set up wireless encryption. You can always leave the password blank for Windows, but you were at least given a prompt to set one.
 
Moral of the story: Never underestimate an idiot... They will always do nothing more than you make them.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you thought that some people want to keep them open?

And also, that going through the process of securing your network, requires securing your PC also, and people is just too lazy. Some other bring people home and don't want to start adding PC's and keys to other people's PCs.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Require? Why the hell should they 'require' it? I can see turning it on be default, but no way should it be required.

I choose to share my wireless with anyone who might need to connect to check their mail etc. I VPN from my laptop to my OpenBSD gateway to keep my own work encrypted, and also allow access my wired home server.

I use the packet filter to ensure I get first dibs on traffic, but any spare bandwidth is open for others to use as the need.

Having it on by default is good. Having it required is not.

Re:My question

[CastrTroy]

I hope you don't regret it when the cops come knocking on your door because somebody has been using your wireless connection to do something illegal like trading child porn. Maybe you wouldn't get convicted because they won't find any other evidence, but I'm sure it would be a major inconvenience. Why risk it? I know you're just trying to be a good Samaritan, but I pay for my internet, and expect that my neighbors would do the same.

Re:My question

[Idbar]

Well then, that is a good indicator that you are in the wrong neighborhood. However, there's always a way to keep track of the computers using your network.

The only reason I have my network protected, is because I don't want to do all that security thing of encrypting, keeping logs. If I weren't lazy enough, I'd keep logs as future support and keep the network open.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't expect the little old lady who lives next door and doesn't have or need a computer to pay for internet access. But when her children and grandchildren visit, it's probably nice for them to be able to check email, etc if they brought a laptop. I'm not going to stop being a good Samaritan because some government yahoo doesn't understand what an open access point is. I've got offsite backups of everything, so if the idiot gestapo take my computers for a look, I can continue to work until they read up on how these internet 'tubes' thingies work.

Re:My question

[c_woolley]

I agree. I also think we should point out the number of people that simply do not understand what they are doing or what is needed to secure a wireless connection. My mom is fairly tech-savvy for an older (I hope like hell she doesn't read this) woman. She understands quite a bit more than the average user. She was new to wireless connections, and decided to give it a try. When she called me to ask if there was anything to do besides plugging the provider's connection to her router, she was surprised when I told her she needed to secure it. She assumed (as someone else had already mentioned in a later post) that security was enabled by default. I walked her through the process without any problems, but it still remains that she did not know that enabling security was required. I asked her why she didn't figure it was needed and why wouldn't she feel that anyone could connect if the wireless connection. It didn't ask her for a password or some type of authentication, her computer was able to get to the Internet. Wouldn't that mean Joe Anyone could get there through her connection too. Her answer was simple, and yet effective. "Well, when I plugged my computer into my old router, it never asked me for a password either...smartass." And there is the answer. People are used to not having to secure their physical connections. If they do, it is usually much worse a situation for the average user, since their home is probably being burglarized at the same time. Now, it isn't the same situation for everyone. Some people know fully well that they need to secure their connections, and just don't. Call it lazy or whatever, maybe they just don't care enough or don't think their information is worth stealing. I have even run into one man who opened his connection up so that his neighbors could surf on his dime. He paid for a 12Mb connection and only used the Internet to surf the news. He didn't care that his neighbors were playing World of Warcraft or other online games. As long as his connection to the news was good, so was he. I suppose the bottom line is that there are reasons for everyone. Increasing some people's knowledge about it can help, others may just not care. Either way, I'll still be able to sit at home and open up my network connections and see unsecured networks. It's on me to decide whether or not to take advantage...and on my neighbors to figure out why they have to rebuild their systems every two weeks (just kidding).

Re:My question

[substance2003]

When you say that you see open networks, do you mean that you see them open or you've actually been able to connect to them? I ask this because I had to setup someone's router to be open but only accept the connection of his Mac note book using the mac address because no other way would work for me. This means that when others are looking at the network they will actually see it as open without any security but in reality it will not permit to connect.

I'm certain the answer to that will be no in most cases as is the the situation with one of my own neigh boors but just wondering.

Incidentally, only one out of 5 networks around my house has no security features enabled. Maybe people in some areas are more aware than others?

Re:My question

[Name Anonymous]

Is it up to the postfix authors to require people to not run open mail relays?

At least postfix by default doesn't have open relaying set up.

Re:My question

[secolactico]

so if the idiot gestapo take my computers for a look, I can continue to work until they read up on how these internet 'tubes' thingies work

I don't mean to censure or discourage your practice of keeping an open AP, but it seems to me that they can do more than simply take your computers away.

They could file charges, take you in custody, leak your name to the press, harass you for the names or your "accomplices", etc. Dealing with law enforcement can be a real bother sometimes (I guess it depends on the jurisdiction where you are located).

Re:My question

[innerweb]

Right...

And you shall:

• Maintain your automobile, engine and all
• Prescribe your own medications
• Manage all the trades and investments in your retiremens account(s)
• Manage your local police force and do all the policing
• Raise and educate your child(ren) on your own (no teachers)
• ...

I would hope that all of these things the vast majority of people would not try. A few would be qualified to do some. For all of these things, we are directed by the *authorities* to have someone else do it, either because it is profitable or because it has become *public* knowledge that this is the way not to do this thing.

Computers are surrounded by much mysticism. MS and others advertise all kinds of wonderful falsehoods. People believe them without knowing what is really happening. They trust them. As long as the public (in general, not the public here) trusts these companies to provide the solution in a box, and as long as they are reasured by the companies that these bad things do not really happen to their people with their products, a large percent of the userbase will continue to ignore those of us out hear yelling "The king is naked" (from a fairy tale). We are a small number of people and we are fighting marketing departments and laziness. So, I think these companies that claim to provide said protection ought to provide that protection out of the box and to force people to use things like secure paswords.

Yeah, I have been a sysadmin for college types and business types, and yeah, the business types were far worse, but in the end, my job was to fulfill my claim of having a secure network, and that meant doing unpopular things like forcing secure passwords.

InnerWeb

Re:My question

[battjt]

And what will you do when the police come knocking on your door because someone filmed child porn in your backyard?

Why risk it? Put up a 20 foot fence!

What will you do when you find out that a homicide was committed with your hotwired car? How about the death threats made on your phone line (you should have bought a T1 and used encryption back to the CO)? What about the death threats to the president spray painted on your garage? The weed grown by the alley at the back of your lot? etc...

Get real! This is life. The benefits of open WiFi far outweigh the risks. Hell, I've used lots of anonymous connections in a pinch (most recently to look up the default IP of my radio, to configure it).

You drive down the street with a complete strangers approaching with a closing speed of over 110 mph, but you wont leave your internet connection open?!

Joe

Re:My question

[Kichigai Mentat]

I'll use WPA when all my devices support it. Granted, I'm not leaving my access point to be unencrypted, but I'm using WEP. I'm a technologically aware guy, I know that WEP can be cracked. But here's my story:

I have a PSP, and I love using it as a web tablet. It supports WPA, but it doesn't support WPA2, WPA Enterprise, or WPA2 Enterprise. The Nintendo DS doesn't even support WPA, and I like my online Tetris. I have an old laptop I use for StarCraft LAN parties, it's USB WiFi device has trouble with WPA. Many portable devices don't support the latest WPA cyphers, or even the RADIUS-enabled WAPs.

So, technologically aware guys aren't going to use an encryption cypher that their devices don't support. I'm already kinda unhappy with my school for using WPA Enterprise, which means the only device I can use on their WiFi network is my laptop, and I'm actively trying to hunt down a PDA or smart-phone that supports WPA Enterprise so that I could get online without having to whip out my laptop and wake it up. Likewise, manufacturers aren't going to force people to use encryption that won't work with their other devices.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Think it out. How are vendors going to require users to use WPA? By having it turned on by default? Then, for interoperability, all the vendors would have to use the same session Id and keys? That's not security, that's the illusion of it. My equipment is old enough, I only have WEP, which I don't use. I rely on the OS tools, (SSH, firewalls, and my own DHCP server) to secure the link. Of course, I don't use Microsoft software to begin with.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, they could do those things. They could do similar things for any number of trumped-up charges in cases where it's easier to point a finger than do actual detective work. The question is, at what point do you stop living your life as you would choose to live it, to keep 'safe'.

Now, realize I'm a liberal and actually have some balls, unlike those pussy neo-cons who are willing to trade their freedom from security from 'the evil terrorists who are going to kill us all at any moment'. If the police harass honest citizens, we need to stand up to it, rather than just roll over as the neo-cons do to anything that they think might make them less safe. Dealing with it can be real bothersome, but giving up freedom is a LOT more bothersome.

Re:My question

[asills]

Most newer routers come with CDs to let the lay people set up their routers. The CD walks them through setting up their wireless router and the recent ones inform people to pick a "security key" and it sets up the wireless security for them (I found this out because I was amazed at finding out my mom had WEP enabled, even though she had no idea what it was - and regardless of how bad WEP is, for any random house in any random neighborhood it's good enough).

So if you would RTFM and/or UTFCD the router came with, it would tell you to set up security :)

Re:My question

[Achromatic1978]

I'm curious ... you seem to be implying there are MTAs that are open relays upon install. Please, show us one.

Re:My question

[Deliveranc3]

Corrolary question, when will they give me a wireless security setup that matches what I want.

I want to share about 30-40Kpbs and have intelligent performance algorithms managing the rest, I want to have my transmissions encrypted while allowing others to SHARE my web-access. (I know that's a big word, like "communist").

When we move to 802.11n (Assuming the same number of wireless routers as currently exist there will be almost 80-90% coverage in urban areas, why would I need a cell phone if we all shared, how about intelligent sharing between networks as a mesh? Once we overflow the casual bandwidth limits we can stop dealing with this "expensive last mile" crap and start getting isolated fibre channels.

My computer is secure, my internet access is mostly encrypted or tunneled, but I don't have access everywhere for affordable prices, I don't think security and sharing have to be mutually exclusive.

Re:My question

[steveo777]

Well then, that is a good indicator that you are in the wrong neighborhood.

The neighborhood will never have anything to do with what kind of neighbors you have when they shut the front door. Sure, you can get a good idea by looking at the outside, and everything may look pleasant. "Never judge a book by its cover"

A friend of mine had a roommate for six months. Everyone agreed he was a pretty good guy. If not a bit obnoxious. A month after the guy moved out the police broke in with a warrant, took every computer and all his media. Movies, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, blanks, everything. They pull my friend into the station and put him behind a mirror and ask him tonnes of invasive questions about sexuality. After a couple weeks they call back. They talked to the old roommate, who confessed to trafficking child pornography. My friend got everything back, which I understand doesn't always happen.

I'd say it's a good idea to secure your network or at least keep some kind of log.

Re:My question

[Achromatic1978]

and I'm actively trying to hunt down a PDA or smart-phone that supports WPA Enterprise so that I could get online without having to whip out my laptop and wake it up

I'm fairly sure most HTCs do, including the Wizard (T-mobile MDA). My employer has wireless at work, WPA2 with mandatory client certs for authentication, etc, etc, and my MDA can connect to it happily enough.

Re:My question

[Deliveranc3]

Well maybe someday you'll learn to work together, I don't own a pick-up but I have a piano, one of my friends owns a pick-up.

I use a lot of bandwidth, so I'm a poor person to share with which is why I should share out.

Re:My question

[Yoooder]

"Requiring" is the wrong word here... I understand what you're saying. Manufacturors ship routers unsecured and wide open by default, a practice that most people (not geeks) will likely never notice. The problem are the average folks who don't know the functional differences between a router and a Roto-Rooter® When Joe Schmo wants to setup wireless for his kids computer, he wants to plug it in and have it work. He doesn't want to plug it in, and have to configure each PC to use the hidden SSID of "brand_98239292" with the WPA AES key of "Kj89J*J(*OPIj&*yuh^&tr67Ryug%^r0)(IHF5e%ryuGjoH*( IhjIGyR%r^*ioH89Y&*gYFd5DyuGUtg(" One solution is to move the keys to firmware on the wireless cards, and ship bundles that include a router and 1 or more wireless NICs that are pre-set to talk exclusively to one another. This would most likely be too difficult to implement under any of the current specs though (as SSIDs & keys are held by the OS at present - not firmware). Of course this solution would also mean that a person would just need to grab your wireless card to access your network--but that is quite a bit more difficult than just running NetStumbler and pressing "connect."

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

why must i enable the security of my router... why do i want it to be a closed system? My router doesnt have the ability to go back into my PC and read files does it, or to accept files from a wireless connection and send them back to the other computers? It doesnt store data on where im going online like Temp internet files. I choose to leave my router unsecured because i really dont care if someone piggybacks my connection, its not like i go places online that i dont want people to know that im going. Also my house is surrounded by 8 others in range of my router. So if anyone is snooping they will have no idea who they are snooping on anyway. Maybe if i had a NETWORK hub or was exchanging data between computers then i might start to consider securing it, or maybe if i had very sensitive data (like a corporation or government). Until then ill stick with my firewalls.

Re:My question

[pclminion]

Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security?

Hopefully never. Who the hell are they (and you, for that matter) to tell me I can't run an open network? Making it impossible for me to do so is a good way to guarantee I'll be going with another vendor.

I find it amazing that people are leaving their connections open when setting up a secure connection is so easy.

I similarly find it amazing how fucking chickenshit some people are. Secure your home machines, put them behind another layer of firewall, whatever. Encrypted wireless is not a magic bullet, nor is it even wanted in some cases.

Re:My question

[maillemaker]

>You drive down the street with a complete strangers approaching with a closing speed of over
>110 mph, but you wont leave your internet connection open?!

The difference is, everyone drives, so chances are, the stranger approaching you on the street is likely just an average joe like you. They probably aren't up to anything nefarious.

I don't think I would put the percentage of likelyhood for being benign as high for people surfing on open WiFi connections.

People seeking out anonymity by piggybacking on my WiFi is scarier to me than your average drive.

And, since I can do something about the former for next to no cost, and there is next to nothing I can do about the later, that's really an apples to oranges comparison.

Re:My question

[pato101]

When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? Yes, sure. By the way, do you know how easy is to crack wireless security by sniffing some hundreds of megabytes? Not saying you should not use encryption, just that wireless security is far from being perfect.

Re:My question

[billcopc]

Eh-Men!

Child pornography is bad, very bad, and should be stopped. I am in total agreement with that. I do have a problem with this "guilty until proven innocent" bullshit the "authorities" have been pulling in the last decade regarding any sort of electronic or intellectual crime.

I would hope that someone being wrongly victimized by these rash police procedures would do the right thing and take it to the (liberal) media. Hang those cops out to dry, and they will eventually tattle on the dirty organizations that have been pulling their strings. The police officer is just an agent, a messenger, a tool manipulated by the suits above their head and the "financial interests" paying their salary. If that master/slave relationship causes them too much grief, they will turn and that's precisely what today's world needs.

Re:My question

[rizzo420]

yeah, don't give up that freedom to allow some dude driving by your house to upload the latest shots of his 12 year old "girlfriend" to his website completely anonymously. or that freedom to allow some other dude to upload the special "pre-release" of the newest metallica album that "they" decided to give away for free.

while you have balls, the government has bigger balls. i'd be willing to bet you'll roll pretty easily when faced with serious jail time for a crime you didn't commit, but allowed some dude to do completely anonymously on your open AP.

Re:My question

[Odiumjunkie]

> Yes, but when you start Windows for the first time, it asks you to set a password. When you plug in your router, it does not ask > you to set up wireless encryption. You can always leave the password blank for Windows, but you were at least given a prompt to set > one.

Yes, but by default the Adminstrator password is left blank, with the username "Administrator".

Re:My question

[tekshogun]

To REQUIRE this is a mistake. Manufacturers, the federal government, and even software developers/vendors warn users that an unsecured access point is dangerous. If they choose to purchase it and leave it open (and the connection is exploited as a result) then that is their responsibility. Call me a liberal on that issue. Plus, I use WEP on my wireless along with MAC filtering and no DHCP enabled. I am not concerned with someone taking that much time to crack my wireless. WPA is nice though. Biggest problem with encryption is that is slows down the access points and the client nodes because they have to scrutinize every packet sent/received for security. Also, it is nice to be able to throw up access points for testing purposes (temporary, no security needed) or if you have your own layer of security such as certificate authentication.

Re:My question

[plague3106]

I hope they don't require that. If I didn't have my old 802.11b router / WEP, I would either to have to live without Wii accessing the internet, or I'd have to move from WPA-EAS to WPA-PSK. I find the EAS setup more secure, because you can't brute force it.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they couldn't possibly use the wireless access at their local coffee shop, university, community network, etc, etc, to do the same anonymously. Right? Open wireless APs exist. Everyone in the world isn't a pedophile out to use your wireless access to do harm. You better make sure the cops go bust everyone at your local Starbucks who has a laptop. I'm sure they must all be sicko's uploading kiddie porn. I mean, that's the only reason anyone would use open wireless access points. Right? Get a grip. You must be one of those sissy neo-cons who are terrified of their own shadows.

Even if someone does use an open access point for bad things, if the police are idiotic enough to arrest someone with an open access point based on no more than that, they are going to tip off the bad guy and let him get away scott-free. And what exactly am I going to 'roll' on when I'm providing the exact same thing as a dozen coffee shops within a few miles of my place? I have an open access point. My own computers are clean. There's nothing to 'roll' about. Show some backbone.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, realize I'm a liberal and actually have some balls

Not enough to post with even a pseudonym. Then again you live in a "liberal" vs "neo-con" world so I don't expect your critical thinking skills to be up to par.

Re:My question

[rizzo420]

good luck showing that backbone when the cops take your computers (which they will likely do anyways).

i have a feeling the cops see a difference in the local starbucks vs the guy who believes in full freedom to do whatever you want on the internet, even though there may not be a difference. i'm no neo-con, in fact, i'm quite liberal myself. however, i'm not stupid and survival of the fittest is something i took to heart when studying evolution (being my major) in college. so i've learned to protect myself from shit like that happening. i don't know about you, but i don't have the resources to pay a lawyer and deal with the cops taking my computers and bringing me in for questioning. i'd rather not have that on my back.

so while i'm all for free open AP's, i'm also smart enough to know that it comes down on me. starbucks is a big corporation. they have the resources on hand to deal with stuff like that. i'm just one guy trying to live my life. i don't. i'll let starbucks fight the government.

Re:My question

[Sancho]

I receive no benefits from opening up my wifi. I receive benefits if someone else does.

That said, the problem is the current laws and administration. They don't understand that an IP address received from your ISP does not uniquely identify the end-user. Furthermore, the absurd invasion of my home and holding of my property in computer-based crimes is unreal. They'll take your computers, all your media (even obviously retail DVDs), your gaming systems, your TiVo, your VCR.... And that's without any proof that you did anything. It's evidence that they hold while they build the case, and in some states, you may never get it back, even if no case is brought against you. Even assuming that they'll hold the stuff until the statute of limitations passes, it might as well be forever.

Computers aren't well understood by the police and courts, and thus they take everything overboard. I don't want to be one of the cases where my connection is abused and my life is turned upside down because of the ignorance of those in charge.

Re:My question

[TeknoHog]

I want to share about 30-40Kpbs and have intelligent performance algorithms managing the rest, I want to have my transmissions encrypted while allowing others to SHARE my web-access. (I know that's a big word, like "communist").

Me too. However, I think the main problem is with ISPs who don't want you to share your connection. Some operators do allow FON, apparently since it's a closed and logged system, but as another business it goes against the ideals of sharing, IMHO.

Re:My question

[crossmr]

Don't buy a residential device? If you want to do advanced set up, pony up the bucks and go purchase a device to do it.
As mentioned FON is a cheap solution to do that, it puts out 2 SSIDs, a shared one and a private encrypted on, and you can use the web interface I believe to rate limit people on your open shared line.

Otherwise go buy a high quality business device with more than one available AP and set it up to do whatever you want. Cisco has tons of devices that can deliver you that kind of setup. So the answer is, its already there. Go nuts.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Washington and Jefferson wish they had more guys like you back when a revolution was needed. Someone has to fight when those without backbone won't. And sometimes it's the other little guys who end up needing to do the fighting to protect the rights of sorry asses like yourself.

I'm a biologist as well. There's another classification for those like you that let others do all the work and leach off of the benifits... Parasite.

Re:My question

[walt-sjc]

You do know that WPA is not the same as WEP, right? And that one is easy to crack and the other isn't? Just checking...

Re:My question

[fredklein]

I don't want to be one of the cases where my connection is abused and my life is turned upside down because of the ignorance of those in charge.

So you have 2 choices-

1) Never do ANYTHING that those 'idiots in charge' might EVER mistake for illegal.

2) Get rid of the idiots and get SMART people in charge. (Or at least technology-wise people)

Re:My question

[griffjon]

We have cable, our neighbors have DSL. It's common for one of those services to be out of whack, but rare for both of them.

Re:My question

[Slashcrap]

You do know that WPA is not the same as WEP, right? And that one is easy to crack and the other isn't? Just checking...

You do know that using WPA with a passphrase susceptible to a dictionary attack leads to nearly instant 0wnage? Just checking that you don't think WPA plus stupid users necessarily equals secure.

Re:My question

[A non-mouse Coward]

You'd be surprised how many of these devices are now coming out of the box with a "run me first" CD which auto-configures laptops & APs to talk at least WPA.

But the question I have is ... Why aren't these APs/Wireless Routers coming with a built-in RADIUS server so that authentication can be stronger and more convenient than some random password/key. I bet everybody would like to be able to set up user accounts on their APs for friends/family, etc.

Re:My question

[rustalot42684]

Sharing.... That's because you're a Communist! I bet you even use that illegal hacker operation system, Lunix!

Re:My question

[Sancho]

1) Never do ANYTHING that those 'idiots in charge' might EVER mistake for illegal. No, apparently you, like many people, don't understand that there are gray areas. It's not a binary choice. It's risk management, and I have decided that the risks aren't worth it. Besides, it's not mistaking things as being illegal, it's mistaking who is the person performing the illegal act. In the online world, where connections from one IP address can be made from many, many different people, it's pretty hard to tell who is doing something bad. It may be that the police shouldn't try, but they do, and therefore, I choose to reduce risk by limiting who is allowed to use the IP address that my ISP assigns to me.

2) Get rid of the idiots and get SMART people in charge. (Or at least technology-wise people) I try every time there's an election. Unfortunately, it never seems to work.

Re:My question

[Fission86]

Wow and here I thought I was the only one that left their network unprotected for that specific reason

Re:My question

[A non-mouse Coward]

Riiiiight.
Because the "WAP is open" defense works so well.

Re:My question

[The Clockwork Troll]

Those open connections are just part of the redundancy of the internet. And the next time RIAA come knocking on our door, we just point fingers again.

I think you misspelled "alibi".

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

So in the process of protecting your rights, you protect the rights of people to upload kiddie porn. Fabulous. Sign me up.

And regardless of whether or not something is a parasite, the fittest still survive.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all those people at Starbucks with laptops 'seeking out anonymity by piggybacking on their WiFi ' are scary. Or, they could just be regular folks who take advantage of easy access to the internet to check their mail, read CNN, etc.

Our University also provides open wireless access to the local community. Do you think they are doing it secretly to support thousands of local pedophiles? They claim it is to support openness, ease-of-use, education, and to benefit some of the poor in the local area who might not be able to afford their own internet access.

Nah, you are right. They are scary. I'm sure it's a secret plot to let terrorist sleeper cells have access to destroy the country. Be a good little neo-cons, give up all your freedoms to stay safe from all the evil terrorists/pedophiles/pirates out there!

Re:My question

[fredklein]

there are gray areas

Yeah. 'Gray' is where you get all your stuff back just a few years after it was confiscated. Some is missing, some broken, and the rest obsolete. This is not the worst case, it IS the middle ground. The extremes are:

White: Cops knock on your door, and say there was child porn coming from your IP. You point out you have an open AP, and turn over what logs you have. The cops leave, never to bother you again.

Black: You get arrested, your stuff taken, and charges filed. The prosecutor drags your name thru the mud in the press, ruining your life. You lose your job. You lose your kids. You get told that (since those in charge are 'idiots'), you have a better chance of getting out of prison early if you plead guilty. You plead, and get tossed in jail with a big guy named Bubba.

Besides, it's not mistaking things as being illegal, it's mistaking who is the person performing the illegal act.

Not always. Remember the case of the man who was sitting in the coffee shop parking lot, using the WiFi? Got arrested, even though the WiFi was free. The cop went and looked thru the law until he found something he could charge the guy with. Are you seriously suggesting the guy should never use wifi again, just to avoid this situation in the future?

Re:My question

[Cal Paterson]

Is it up to Microsoft to require people to use secure passwords? Is it up to Oracle to require people with sensitive data to use the data encryption features of Oracle? Is it up to the postfix authors to require people to not run open mail relays?

Almost. The policy of sane and secure defaults should be followed. Most distros try their hardest to do this, sometimes getting it wrong, but it is probably the biggest factor in the reduction of attacks against FOSS Unix machines.

Re:My question

[Sancho]

Nope. We were talking about actions that individuals do, not the repercussions of the police. Try to keep on target.

Black: Do all sorts of crazy things, hoping that The Man won't come down on you.
White: Never do anything which might cause The Man to come down on you, specifically because someone else did something illegal, but made it look like you did.
Gray: Protect yourself from the consequences which you subjectively decide are not worth dealing with given the potential gains/losses and difficulty in implementing the protection scheme. Even though it's statistically unlikely that someone will intentionally use my wide-open wireless internet connection to break the law, the consequences of such an act are extremely high. The benefit of leaving my connection open is almost nil, and it's easy to secure. I therefore decide to lock down my connection. If I had more benefits from leaving it wide open (for example, say I have legacy hardware which does not support encryption) then I might decide that the gains outweigh the risks. In this case, I don't.

Are you seriously suggesting the guy should never use wifi again, just to avoid this situation in the future? I didn't say anything of the sort. In fact, I didn't even reference this case at all. You're putting words in my mouth, making terribly unsubstantiated inferences, or both.

As I said, you weigh the risks against the benefits. There is no correct answer that applies to every situation.

Re:My question

[DrScotsman]

Here's my question. When are router manufacturers going to start requiring people to use WPA security? I got a Wii a couple weeks ago, and used the wireless part of my wireless router for the first time. Setup of WPA was very easy.

Funny that you mentioned the Wii, given that the Nintendo DS has no WPA functionality whatsoever. Now personally I don't know which Wifi types are secure or not, but I've seen a hell of a lot of people complain about WEP's lack of security in discussion about the Nintendo DS.

I always hoped that Nintendo would rectify this by allowing one to use the Nintendo Wii as an access point for DSs only, since if you enable WiiConnect24 it's an always-on device (and it'd also have the added benefit of not having to buy a Wireless router at all to use the Nintendo DS online, if you bought the Wii LAN adapter). But right now, all the points in my house use WEP due to my Nintendo DS.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly how would you like a router to ask the user about that? Most users just plug in the network cable and let DHCP handle the rest. Go to http://192.168.1.1? Probably not, too much work. What do you propose, disabling the router until they go there and get prompted? A support nightmare, won't happen.

Re:My question

[Critical Facilities]

Call it lazy or whatever,

Not trolling here, and admittedly off-topic, but may I introduce you to a lovely little tag ---> br
You make a good point in your post, but it's tough to read.

Re:My question

[kwark]

How about just disabling wireless until a password is set? Most routers come with atleast 1 patch cable.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't these APs/Wireless Routers coming with a built-in RADIUS server so that authentication can be stronger and more convenient than some random password/key.

Becaus ethis still isn't working well. Hell, I both KNOW ABOUT and WANT TO setup authentication to a RADIUS/IAS server on my AD controller, which is technically SUPPORTED by my non-consumer WAP.

Yet I don't because I can't get it to work.

Re:My question

[WilliamTS99]

"regardless of how bad WEP is, for any random house in any random neighborhood it's good enough"
I know a handful of people within a couple blocks of me that LOVE the way you think :-)

WEP = breakable within about a min(about 5max) with tools that my 10yr old daughter could find and use.
Not only that but once the wireless is compromised, so is the wired side.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is protecting their right to upload kiddie porn? There are laws against kiddie porn. Let them find the guy uploading it and prosecute him. I don't have to give up my own liberties so that the police have an easier job.

The cops would also have an easier time if we all wore GPS-ankle -bracelets all the time. Do you suggest we all wear those so cops have an easier time catching car thieves?

You may want to trade your liberties for security. I don't.

Re:My question

[frogephant]

"Is it up to Microsoft to require people to use secure passwords? Is it up to Oracle to require people with sensitive data to use the data encryption features of Oracle? Is it up to the postfix authors to require people to not run open mail relays?

As always, security is left up to those running the system. Similarly, wireless network security is up to those running the network. You can't force people to be secure. All you can do is strongly encourage it."

Certainly the responsibility is the individual user's. But frequently they don't know enough about it to know what to do or even how to find out what to do. And it can be worse than that.

When I got my DSL connection, the ISP (a major U.S. telephone company) sent me a modem/router with very basic instructions that said plug this wire in here and that wire in there. Nothing was said about wireless or encryption. However, I noted an antenna on the box and figured that was for wireless.

So I called the company's technical support to find out how to turn it on/off and how to set up encryption. The tech support guy told me not to worry, that the wireless was turned on by default. As for encryption, he said his company did NOT support encryption on wireless. After some pleading, he finally told me how to log into the router. But he would say nothing else, not even a hint on how to turn on encryption. (Since, at the time, I had no wireless devices, I simply turned off the wireless link. Subsequently, I acquired a laptop with wireless and figured out how to encrypt my traffic.)

The point of this is that even though I had the sense to ask how to make my wireless connection (somewhat) secure, the company was unwilling to provide any help and only after much pleading did they even provide a hint as to how I could control the thing. So even if an individual wants to take responsibility, it is not always possible.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's my answer. The same moment when people no longer attempt to hijack someone's wireless connection.
Notice it's as simplistic, unrealistic, and banal as your question.

Re:My question

[morcego]

Does WPA work on 802.11b network ? As far as I know, it doesn't. And there still a lot of 802.11b hardware around.
Just because you have all your wifi equipment capable of 802.11g doesn't mean that is true for everybody else.

Re:My question

[labnet]

I choose to share my wireless with anyone who might need to connect If your country/state guarantees you common carrier status, then go for it, otherwise you are taking a big risk.

Re:My question

[dumeinst]

How about openbsd? You can do some fairly fancy queuing and packet prioritizing with pf. Unfortunately nothing beyond wep.

Re:My question

[pato101]

You do know that WPA is not the same as WEP, right? Embarrassing. I didn't know. Thanks for the pointer. Sorry for the noise.

Re:My question

[Gordonjcp]

Hm, I'm qualified to do most of that. The policing I'd farm out to the experts though. Someone else can get Hep C from an infected junkie needle.

Re:My question

[walt-sjc]

Brute force password guessing is not the same as cracking WEP. WEP is broken, WPA is not. Yes, if you set your WPA password to something stupid like "password", you may get hacked, but this is nothing like WEP where no matter HOW good your password, it can probably be cracked in 20 mins or so...

Re:My question

[morgan_greywolf]

Then why do almost all distros not set any ulimits by default in the shell, despite the fact that they are aware that this can lead to a local denial of service? Why is that in Ubuntu/Debian, anytime you install a server application (OpenSSH, Apache, Samba) the default seems to be to 1) always have it turned on at boot and 2) be open to the world?

Re:My question

[sakasune]

It sounds like he was on the inside of the network and had access to it anyway. Securing your network doesn't protect you against obnoxious, sick, pedophilic (?) roommates.

Re:My question

[Anonymous Coward]

My wireless network is completely open because my nearest neighbor is half a mile away. Forcing people to set up wpa isn't the answer--perhaps is routers came with wpa enabled and a quick start guide telling how to connect to the routers protected network and how to change the network settings.
~ChasaD

Re:My question

[steveo777]

That is true, but I'm giving an account as to why it may be a good idea to keep logs. Securing the network would (hopefully) prevent some one you don't know from doing such things, and logging should protect you from actions of those you 'trust'.

Re:My question

[GWBasic]

Get real! This is life. The benefits of open WiFi far outweigh the risks. Hell, I've used lots of anonymous connections in a pinch (most recently to look up the default IP of my radio, to configure it).

Here are my reasons:

1. I have information on my network that I'd like to keep private.
2. I don't trust Windows on any kind of open network; I fear the day when some virus spreads by hopping through open access points.
3. I'm still not quite comfortable that my Macs are secure. (I've been using them for less then a year.)
4. I have five computers that are always connected to the network, plus 3 VMs that are always connected to the network, plus another VM that is occasionally connected to the network, plus another 2 computers that are occasionally connected to the network. My router isn't smart enough to know which are mine and which get low priority.
5. Finally, and this is the kicker: I buy my bandwidth for ME, my roommate, and my guests. I don't want our Skype calls interrupted by three cheapos living in my apartment building who are about to pull 1-gig downloads.

Re:My question

[rstarg]

2) Get rid of the idiots and get SMART people in charge. (Or at least technology-wise people)

I try every time there's an election. Unfortunately, it never seems to work.

This is true - look at Bush v Gore.
Then it becomes even more apparent when you consider Bush v Kerry!

This is a nice summary.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess full sentences are not required to submit a "story". I also like the lack of context.

Favorite question so far...

[hal2814]

Q: "Is wireless [Wi-Fi-based] VoIP worth the bother?"

A: "Generally, no."

Sponsored by AT&T

Re:Favorite question so far...

[grasshoppa]

I generally agree with that assessment. I'll take it one step further; I won't do VoIP unless I can punch down into copper at some point ( or a t1. Anything with an SLA ). My phone traffic going over the same pipe as my internet is an incredibly bad idea. More so ( by 100x ) if you are a business.

VoIP over a corporate network is where it shines. But over the wild internet? No thanks.

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Shakrai]

Sponsored by AT&T

You mean "the new at&t" don't you? It's lowercase now so it's less threatening!

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Zonk (troll)]

Sponsored by AT&T

You mean "the new at&t" don't you? It's lowercase now so it's less threatening!

Your world. Delivered.

...to the NSA

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Deliveranc3]

Ancedote, I have a Ghost Phone. It has no record with any phone company, never gets a bill and can make unlimited calls anywhere.

Now none of the phone hacker people are willing to help me move the ghost account to a new phone, this old one gets terrible reception and has 3 hours standby.

But how much is this phone worth, how much is the freedom to never worry about a bill worth? Not to look at the clock not to wonder if you're going over? Well I offered my sister $1200 for the phone 3 years ago (She had it first with over 4 weeks talk time on it [she literally talked for weeks on this phone])... she told me no in a heartbeat.

$40 a month doesn't sound like much but the peace of mind of not having to deal with cell phone companies when you want to upgrade a phone or deal with them at all, is priceless.

Free service is possible, and it's nice, I recommend it to everyone... if there was free service for the .11G phones I'd be all over them in a second.

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Anonymous Coward]

And you think this because why? I ask because from the perspective of someone who's been using VoIP as his primary phone service for around two years now, I find that there's more of a difference between VoIP (over the scary old Internet) and POTS-over-Cu in theory than there is in practise.

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the place you find someone to sell you one of these is?

Re:Favorite question so far...

[grasshoppa]

And you think this because why? I ask because from the perspective of someone who's been using VoIP as his primary phone service for around two years now, I find that there's more of a difference between VoIP (over the scary old Internet) and POTS-over-Cu in theory than there is in practise.

It's a question of responsibility and risk. POTS, the responsibility is pushed on to the phone company; As well as the risk. They know the game, like them or hate them. And seriously, I can't remember the last time my phone was out.

Now, voip? Well, the responsibility is pushed on to me to maintain the internet link at my location. On top of that, there are all sorts of other factors that come into play; ISP staying up, power staying up. When was the last time your ISP was out? How about your power?

I have a family to worry about at home. 911 *needs* to work when time comes to use it. If someone dies because my ISP is out or my power is ( and how likely is it that I'll have to use 911 during a power outage? ), I won't care that the phone company is the definition of soulless and evil empire; A loved one will still have died.

If the phone goes out at work, it's lost business. Several thousands of dollars of lost business, every hour. Will my bosses care that the telco is evil and soulless? Or that they lost money? People pay me because I make wise and intelligent decisions for their business; My reputation pays my way. Regardless of my personal opinions, I must make the decisions that protect my clients first.

Re:Favorite question so far...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. To each his own. Personally, my reason for liking VoIP isn't that I hate the soulless evil telco (though I do). I like it because I'm a cheap bastard, and the cost/benefit/risk analysis works for me.

My own experience is that reliability of my VoIP service is pretty decent -- a few outages a year, at worst. Of course, I do spend the extra money for a decent ISP, with very good uptime and a competent NOC staff. Power issues are reasonably well-covered by a UPS -- I estimate greater than 24 hours of runtime off of the one I'm using. And I have a cell phone as backup. (Yes, cellular isn't terribly reliable, but the assumption is that failures are not closely correlated.)

As an interesting sidebar, during the Northeast Blackout of '03 people just down my street lost their POTS service after about 36 hours. Guess the telco didn't know the game quite as well as they were supposed to. Not surprising given that they're actually mostly a bunch of marketroids.

It would be quite unfortunate if someone came to harm because of a VoIP outage, but from my perspective it's less frightening when you consider the real risks. P(something bad happening) ~= P(something bad happens at home) * P(VoIP service is out) * P(cell service is out too or the emergency is so severe that the lost time dialing a second time makes the crucial difference). I agree that this is greater than P(something bad happens at home) * P(POTS is out) but both are pretty darn small, probably smaller than P(I get hit by a truck crossing the street downtown). But the 911 bogey man probably does more than anything else to keep people from deep-sixing their POTS. To take a different perspective on it, I live about a mile from my region's best hospital. I bet moving ten miles out would have a greater negative effect on the outcome of a medical emergency than what we're discussing. Yet I've never heard anyone referred to as irresponsible for making that choice.

But, as I said, to each his own.

Pure FUD

[mr_stinky_britches]

This article is pure FUD (thats Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). The questions in TFA are not so much burning or on fire as the title would suggest..

--
Wi-Fizzle Research

tagged this article with 'FUDFUDFUD'

[mr_stinky_britches]

Not sure if /. filters the FUD tag now, so I'm suggesting we tag it with both FUD and FUDFUDFUD (if nothing else it will tell us whether we can avoid the filters by just doing repetitions of the tags we want to show up).

Re:tagged this article with 'FUDFUDFUD'

[dotpavan]

"if nothing else it will tell us whether we can avoid the filters by just doing repetitions of the tags we want to show up"

you mean duping the tags? c'mon, that is not a good way to protest the dupes here..

Re:tagged this article with 'FUDFUDFUD'

[mr_stinky_britches]

Okay, then what would be a good way to protest the tag censoring on slashdot?

Re:tagged this article with 'FUDFUDFUD'

[dotpavan]

you mean duping the tags? c'mon, that is not a good way to protest the dupes here..
I was poking at the slashdot dupes, but after this explanation, it falls flat

Which wireless security threats are scariest?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I voted for Tesla coils.

Re:Which wireless security threats are scariest?

[CompMD]

1) Acquire microwave oven.
2) Rig door switch so microwave will operate with door open.
3) Run microwave with door open.
4) ???
5) Profit!

Re:Which wireless security threats are scariest?

[oliverthered]

#4 Kill all the commies.

It may have been one of those myths, but I heard somewhere about how if there was an invasion people could run out into the street with their microwaves and fry all the commies.

It sounds so highly implausible that I thought it could only have originated from the US government.

stop DOS?

[BendingUnit]

"stop wireless denial-of-service" On a shared media accessible to everyone - I want to see this.

The real questions about WiFi:

[Opportunist]

1. Why can't Router manufacturers make WPA the default and use "no security" instead?

2. Why can't we get the information just how far away the "full bandwidth" works, instead of finding out without fail that most APs can hardly provide the promised bandwidth over distances more than 5 yards?

3. How long 'til we can't use WiFi anymore because all frequencies are already taken by your neighbors and the companies around you? Worse, can you soon be forced to discontinue your WiFi use because the company next door needs your frequency? (Because, yes, it's unusable past 20 yards but can easily interfere with networks a few miles away, it seems)

4. What's the legal implication when someone uses my WiFi AP without my consent by hacking into it and distributing illegal material through it? I'm waiting for the first verdict where you have a completely secure AP, someone still manages to break it and then...?

5. In turn, what about "free" APs, kept open deliberately. What about town wide WiFi networks, a few cities already started a project but they never went anywhere. Care to tell us why?

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[Anonymous Coward]

4. What's the legal implication when someone uses my WiFi AP without my consent by hacking into it and distributing illegal material through it? I'm waiting for the first verdict where you have a completely secure AP, someone still manages to break it and then...?

If it were "completely secure" you wouldnt have been hacked. I think what you meant was, with reasonable security measures in place.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[cdrguru]

WPA requires support in the device connecting which isn't always there. It also requires a lot more effort on the user's part to connect up. If routers came with RADIUS servers where you had to log in it would be much simpler and clearer for everyone... but no.

WiFi is on an unlicensed frequency, which pretty much means that as long as the power is low nobody can complain. I suspect there will be a licensed version of WiFi at some point where you buy a license for a geographic area and a channel. This would eliminate 90% of the problems with commercial use, such as the microwave oven kicking everyone off at Starbucks where you are paying for access. Companies would also have the same thing for "mobile workers" so nobody gets kicked off. On the free unllicensed frequency you are going to take your chances and it is going to get very, very crowded.

Leaving an AP open means you are providing a service for others to use. Your user agreement with them is going to control how they use it and who is responsible for materials being transferred. What? No user agreement? Well then, I guess you are going to be responsible unless you can convince the judge that just anyone might have been using it and you wouldn't have any idea. Sort of like leaving a gun laying around - if someone gets shot you aren't really responsible are you? It is going to depend on the prosecutor and the judge.

I don't know of any "free" (as in taxpayer-supported) municipal WiFi network that has gone anywhere at all. Lots of networks just joined up with T-Mobile, Boingo and others for billing. Yes, you have to log in so the know who you are and they do have a user agreement that you have to accept.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[jshriverWVU]

I use to be in HWUG (Houston Wireless User Group) and there was a decent free mesh there. That was 4 years ago. Hear it's even better now.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[Idbar]

1. Why can't Router manufacturers make WPA the default and use "no security" instead?

I say, why WPA, why not WEP or 802.1x? Because everything is based on Drafts not standards so everyone does what they want.

2. Why can't we get the information just how far away the "full bandwidth" works, instead of finding out without fail that most APs can hardly provide the promised bandwidth over distances more than 5 yards?
That mainly depends on both your router and your network card, therefore it's quite complicated to know exactly these distances. You might as well buy a 1W router and radiate everyone around you. They are only US$1000+

3. How long 'til we can't use WiFi anymore because all frequencies are already taken by your neighbors and the companies around you? Worse, can you soon be forced to discontinue your WiFi use because the company next door needs your frequency? (Because, yes, it's unusable past 20 yards but can easily interfere with networks a few miles away, it seems)
Frequencies around 2G are not licensed, reason why cordless phones and later WiFi routers were put into that range. As long as you don't radiate too much power, it shouldn't be a problem. You can switch among (at least) 3 non-interfering channels or 11 channels in total, without counting on the SSID. Of course the more devices you have attached, the worse the performance (which takes you again to your 2nd question).

What it comes to my mind is, WHY people keeps using SSIDs like "linksys" or "netgear", and the really poor implementation of the wireless connection managers in MAC and Windows (Linux is primitive, but at least does what you want).

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[oyenstikker]

"really poor implementation of the wireless connection managers"

The same reason that everything is poorly implemented. Reality is complex, thus the requirements are complex. The requirements are complex, thus a complete implementation would be complex. A vast majority of customers can't handle a complex implementation, so a simple, but incomplete, implementation is built.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[dave562]

I suspect there will be a licensed version of WiFi at some point where you buy a license for a geographic area and a channel.

This is antecdotal at best and coming twice removed from the source, but I will offer it up anyway. A client of mine is in a business that involves running trucks from southern California up into the central valley as far north as Madera/Dinuba. They wanted constant radio communication with the trucks but realized that they couldn't do it with what was publicly available. What they had to do was license a portion of the spectrum from the FCC. Now they are allowed to broadcast on that spectrum over most of southern California and out to the channel islands (Catalina, etc). To offset part of the cost of owning the spectrum they are selling wireless internet to boats. They are also getting real time data feeds from the trucks. They are using Motorola radios and the guys who are building out the infrastructure for them are a big government contractor who also happen to do radio stuff for oil companies down in Africa. So the technology is there to do long distance, high speed wireless if you have the money. It's just slowly trickling down into the public sector via 802.11n and what not.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if people are not informed enough to turn on WPA, they will most likely be not informed enough to change the default password. Just look at how many open networks have the default SSID. Now, if each router came with random assigned password, then this might actually help secure the network, but I can see how this will be a nightmare for customer support and product management point of view. It's the old usuablility vs security issue.

Re:The real questions about WiFi:

[cats-paw]

2. Why can't we get the information just how far away the "full bandwidth" works, instead of finding out without fail that most APs can hardly provide the promised bandwidth over distances more than 5 yards? Marketing. Like all marketing they have to quote you the biggest number. The biggest number, i.e. the highest data rate is ALWAYS the worst performer in terms of range. So you have 2 choices. Hardcode the WLAN system for the data rate that you need . The manufacturers should use "rate fallback" to handle increasing interference/distance, but they they seem to have uniformly poor implementations.

3. How long 'til we can't use WiFi anymore because all frequencies are already taken by your neighbors and the companies around you? Worse, can you soon be forced to discontinue your WiFi use because the company next door needs your frequency? (Because, yes, it's unusable past 20 yards but can easily interfere with networks a few miles away, it seems) It will be not too long methinks. 2.4GHz is very crowded. What's even more boneheaded is the new requirement in 802.11 know as "high rate". It will allow ONLY 1 CHANNEL to operate in the 2.4GHz band because it doubles the bandwidth used. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Marketing of course, having a high rate mode using double the bandwidth allows you to advertise an even higher, although almost worthless, data rate.

5GHz is supposed to help with these problems, and it can to a certain extent. Unfortunately the path loss is higher for the higher frequency, so you immediately lose about 1/2 your range. However, if you can use a lower data rate with better signal to noise performance, you can make that up. Letting the system try to automatically maintain the rate seems to work poorly since it tries to maintain the highest data rate as opposed to the necessary data rate.

The last time I tried working with WLAN clients, I seem to recall that maintaining control over the datarate was a real problem. Too bad, even you only need a 12MB/s connection instead of 36MB/s you would definitely enjoy better performance. The manufacturers need to make it easy for use to control those parameters.

What I want to know is

[rsilvergun]

What the heck are we going to do about everyone and his bro having his own wireless router? It's a special kind of heck when you've got an apartment complex with 7 or 8 or 10 wireless networks all in range and all competing. Add to that cell phones, wireless cameras, printers, etc, etc, and wireless is rapidly becoming useless...

Re:What I want to know is

[Anonymous Coward]

Shout louder.

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

7-10 wireless networks? Wow you poor thing. The Devil must have it in for you.

I can pick up over 65 networks from my apartment and had to go to 5.8GHz phones because 2.4GHz was completely unusable in the apartment. The interference was just ridiculous.

Re:What I want to know is

[CastrTroy]

My trick for the phones is to use the 980 MHz phones. More than enough range for an apartment, and there's very little interference.

Re:What I want to know is

[ATMosby]

All you need to do is get 11 spare wireless routers and 11 high power antenna's. Don't hook them up to anything. Generate lots and lots of traffic/noise. Make all wireless useless where you live. After a month or so you won't have anyone else trying to use wireless around you. Repeat every so often.

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

I had them when I first moved in, they weren't any better. I'm in a pretty dense block, 37 floors with 8 or 9 apartments per floor. They might actually work now that most people have moved away from them (unless there are a lot of hold outs in my building).

Re:What I want to know is

[wperry1]

Plus the 900Mhz band phones are generally older and therefore cheaper!

Re:What I want to know is

[mrzaph0d]

I know in my neighborhood Verizon rolled out FIOS recently. Anyone signing up got a free wireless router. So far I've only detected about 3-4 maximum at a time, but I wonder how long before the neighborhood saturates to the point that it gets too crowded to get a good signal from my own router.

Re:What I want to know is

[evil_Tak]

Talk to the apartment complex and/or your neighbors about setting up a single, shared wireless network to avoid the problem?

Re:What I want to know is

[Borland]

If it bothers you enough, then you switch to a wired connection. Likewise you switch to wired peripherals. Wireless is a convenience technology for the most part. I speak of wireless in the sense of short range wi-fi products like a wireless g router.

But if it becomes a necessary on a large scale, then methods will be developed to deal with it just like they were with UHF, VHF, FM, AM, and so on. Cell Phones are still prone to glitches, but they are so widespread in use that growth forced changes that could accommodate a large number of users in close proximity.

If wi-fi and related peripherals become so popular that even country villages are crowding the spectrum, then the pressure will force an evolution in those products. Until that happens, I suggest you reacquaint yourself with technology that is not limited to 11 open slots.

Heck, if you still feel frisky for cable-free sexy technology you can see if that powerline crap will work for you. Or, if you fear not the FCC, overpower everyone else with your own pimped out 2.4Ghz wi-fi transmitter.

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

While interesting, a much friendlier suggestion would be to use that paint/wallpaper that blocks wireless signals. Put it on your exterior walls and ceiling. Encourage your apartment company to do it in all suites. Or at least your downstairs neighbour so you can be fairly insulated. Not only do you free up your air space for your wireless access point so you can get good speed to the device, you also reduce the interference on any 2.4 GHz phones you might have/want to use.

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

This seems fairly unrealistic. The apartment company may become liable if someone does something illegal across the connection (whether or not we feel that is right, the law could go whichever way on it), or the person whose name the connection is in could be held accountable as well. not to mention the more devices connected, the slower the service. Wireless bandwidth is not unlimited. Not to mention, what if the device has an issue at 3 am? Do you want to wake up whoever owns it to fix it? In the case of an apartment company, they won't want to be woken up at 3 am to have a worker go reset the device if necessary.

Re:What I want to know is

[evil_Tak]

There are many, many apartment complexes that function as kind of subleasing ISPs for their residents. I'm fairly sure that, legally, they get protected common-carrier status. They would have to contract with a "real" ISP to install APs in sensible places, etc. As far as 3am maintenance, internet connectivity becomes another service they subcontract like water or electricity, and is handled as such.

For the neighbor option, obviously it would have to be more informal, and there's the potential for bandwidth issues, but a functioning, non-maximal-bandwidth connection is still preferable to a nonfunctioning, maximal-bandwidth connection.

Re:What I want to know is

[Firethorn]

Or even just spend the extra money and get 802.11a/5Ghz stuff.

There's hardly anything in the spectrum up there. Given the reduction in interference, 802.11a is likely going to have both a longer range and faster speeds than even 802.11n

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

Actually A, because of the frequency length has a harder time penetrating walls, which actually makes it ideal for apartments because while it operates well within your own, the signal degrades faster the more walls it hits.
Outside with no interference A and G have similar ranges.

Re:What I want to know is

[Firethorn]

I was referring to some 'real world' tests that found A had a very slight advantage, even through walls, mainly because of the lower noise floor. The fact that it doesn't have to worry about playing with B devices, thus has a lower overhead also gives it a slight boost in speed also helps.

From my understanding, 5Ghz devices, while they penetrate less, also bounce better.

Re:What I want to know is

[crossmr]

The only problem I could see would be wireless devices which aren't made to use A (because A isn't as popular and buying an A access point is more expensive, home users want cheap). For example I'm not sure if the Wii and DS support A or not. While a desktop or laptop you could just go get a card for, you might end up having to run a dual band access point, I think linksys sells an A + G though I'm not sure if they can run at the same time, to satisfy any devices you have which are locked with no chance of expansion.

Re:What I want to know is

[Firethorn]

That is a problem; one I wish they'd fixed with the new N standard.

As written, N can be applied to either frequency band, I just wish they'd limited it to the 5 ghz range. As is 90% of the pre-N devices are 2.4Ghz only, which exasperates the problem.

Running a A+G setup isn't difficult, 99% of the APs that support 802.11a also do G, via a different transmitter. This can help, because even if you still have to have some G devices, you can still put things like your computer on the 5Ghz range and free up bandwidth for the remaining devices.

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[Alphager]

have you considered dlan (ethernet over electric wires)?

printer friendly version

[BestNicksRTaken]

http://edge.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi? pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2007/061 107-burning-questions.html

Yeah, I know it looks like some dodgey mailer script, but it just uses Javascript form elements to fill in bits of their standard printer page, instead of making a proper URL. Of course GET vs. POST is not checked ;-)

My question:

[DogDude]

When is wireless not going to suck? Seriously. I don't use it because of absolutely rotten reliability. Inconsistent speed, and intermittent connections are a rotten tradeoff for being able to save a few wires here and there.

Re:My question:

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, it works when you stop buying the cheapest hardware available, and when you take anything that doesn't work well back to the store. I've seen huge variation in success with wireless gear.

Re:My question:

[brunascle]

the precise moment that everything interfering with it dissappears.

Re:My question:

[Raideen]

Sub-par equipment is usually to blame. The disconnections and poor performance that you regularly experience tend to disappear by installing higher grade equipment (assuming, of course, that you don't have a real problem like interference). Despite the high cost, we only install Cisco wireless equipment for our customers. (We do try to make it worth the extra expense with added features like authentication, multiple zones, etc. which is really what you're paying for with Cisco equipment.) I only wish that their Linksys line was the same hardware minus the features. Anecdotally, Netgear seems to have decent consumer grade WAPs (or at least they used to).

Get schooled

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, it sounds like someone should be taking classes on wireless technology rather than asking Slashdot. Only at most 2% of this thread will yeild any actual useful information, and the bulk of that will generally be modded down.

It's not a problem.

[IANAAC]

What the heck are we going to do about everyone and his bro having his own wireless router? It's a special kind of heck when you've got an apartment complex with 7 or 8 or 10 wireless networks all in range and all competing.

How is that really a problem? Just set your preferred network to your own SSID and be done with it (well, that's assuming you didn't leave your SSID named "Linksys" or "Default"). I have about 20 wireless access points visible to me, some open, but most not, and they don't get in the way at all.

Re:It's not a problem.

[slashbob22]

How is that really a problem? Just set your preferred network to your own SSID and be done with it (well, that's assuming you didn't leave your SSID named "Linksys" or "Default"). I have about 20 wireless access points visible to me, some open, but most not, and they don't get in the way at all. I wish it was that simple - I have 40 visibile, another 15 unpublished SSIDs (mine one of them) - all but 4 are secured. I have my own SSID, I have gone to the least populated range (x +/- 3) of channels and I have problems connecting and maintaining the network connection (from a couple meters away).

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[mr_stinky_britches]

How about creating a LAN over the power lines in your residence?

Here is some more information from wikipedia: Power line communication for home networking

I have a friend who did this at his house and it worked out nicely for him.

Good luck!

--
Wi-Fizzle Research

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[brunascle]

as someone else mentioned, they make router-sorta things that work through the electrical wires. i know there's at least one brand that's reliable, but many arent.

also, if you have long enough ethernet cables, you could get clever with the snaking. shove it in the crease between the wall and the rug, and send it up and around door frames. you could paint it the same color as the wall to make it less noticable.

Is 802.11n more reliable?

[jonnyj]

The article seems to assume that 802.11n offers so much more bandwidth that no-one will bother with ethernet any more. Unless the new standard is less susceptible to neighbouring networks, that's just not the case

18 months ago I set up a MythTV setup based around an 802.11g wireless network and, at first, it worked flawlessly - two clients and the server could simultaneously stream TV to/from the router. Then my neighbours started using own networks in anger and the bandwidth available to me gradually dissolved.

Now my network can't come close to supporting one streaming device. Even surfing the net wirelessly is painful, with regular 2-3 second dropouts when the whole street hits the airwaves simultaneously. I've long since given up on wifi and switched to homeplug.

I'm not alone. Most people I know who live in densely populated areas have the same problem. Does 802.11n suffer from the same problems? I imagine that the increased range will just lead to increased contention when its popularity increases. I'm not about to buy it.

Re:Is 802.11n more reliable?

[CallFinalClass]

N suffers from all these problems.

Let me be more specific - 2.4 GHz N suffers from all of these problems. For now, I expect the 5 GHz N implementations to be in much better shape.

Tip of the hat to Apple for making all of their N gear 5 GHz capable.

Wag of the finger to just about everyone else for making their stuff 2.4 Ghz only, likely for backwards compatibility and cost savings.

Re:Is 802.11n more reliable?

[karnal]

The problem with the airspace within the specific band is that there's only so much bandwidth, and that is shared by all devices on that channel, whether they're a part of your network or not.

Of course, this can be mitigated by making your signals stronger (i.e. sitting the devices right beside each other) so that the other devices don't interfere with your signal.

I use wireless A at my place of employment, and I've run into another issue - if I have three people on wireless, and I start transferring a large file (using a good portion of the wireless signal) the other people get squat, and it shows by watching their e-mail sessions just sit there when they try to open the client.

Wireless is good for some things (mobility,) but when it comes to doing large data push/pulls, grab the wire. Your Myth setup isn't a huge drain on even a 802.11g network, but if others in your area are chatting at the same time in a similar channel (peer-to-peer networking?) you'll not have a good time.

Re:Is 802.11n more reliable?

[Malc]

I've had a 5GHz phone for a year now. How well are they going to coexist?

When you get that much signal in the area

[rsilvergun]

it just doesn't work. If you're lucky, you can change channels and get it going, but at a certain point it just confuses the wireless cards. I've tried better routers and cards ( I haven't ponied up for one of those really expensive ones from Apple ).

Re:When you get that much signal in the area

[crossmr]

As you pointed out above, you are only competing with a whopping 7-10 networks. If you can't manage to function in that environment you might want to move to the middle of nowhere. Some lonely 2 acre island in the middle of the pacific. With 65 networks crowding my apartment I have no problem running a Wii, 2 laptops (one with Vista, one with XP) and a media center using one of those little linksys USB wireless boxes. None have ever had a connection issue in the 3 years they've been in that environment.

Re:When you get that much signal in the area

[markov_chain]

Heh I wonder if your neighbors have the same experience ;)

Do you know how much time that takes

[oliverthered]

First off for WPA to be useful they have to put a non default password on the router, that's not an easy job and will push up the price of the routers quite substantially.
And then there's all the support calls from people who can't access their router because they couldn't find the password/lost the bit of paper with it written on etc...

In short, if routers can with encryption turned on by default they would have to have some kind of default password.

And if they have a default password everyone knows it so it's useless and they would have been better off with WPA disabled in the first place so they didn't pretend to be secure and the dumb user wouldn't have stuck with the default passwords.

Personally I leave my network open, then at least I have some kind of defence when they catch me reading websites about how to make bombs

Re:Do you know how much time that takes

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they could put in a unique password into each router as sold (which will add to the price as you have stated), but have it go to some generic default when you reset it (by pressing in the tiny button with a paper clip, etc). That way it will normally have a unique password, but if they loose the slip of paper with it written on it, they can reset it to a generic one easily (and then hopefully follow the directions about changing it to something unique again).

Re:Do you know how much time that takes

[CastrTroy]

Maybe they could put an LCD Display on the front on the router that can display the default password. The default password is randomly generated when it it plugged in for the first time. It can be regenerated by pushing some button on the router. 1 hour after the first connection has been made, the password stops displaying. I'm not sure what the best solution is, and I realize that it should still be possible to create an open access point for those that wish, but I think they should make it a lot harder for the average joe to do that.

Re:Do you know how much time that takes

[niceone]

First off for WPA to be useful they have to put a non default password on the router, that's not an easy job and will push up the price of the routers quite substantially.

I dunno, they already burn a unique mac address into each one, and often print it on a sticker on the case too. Doing the same for a default password doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility.

I'd expect the extra support costs for doing the WPA setup would be the main problem.

Re:Do you know how much time that takes

[ptbarnett]

First off for WPA to be useful they have to put a non default password on the router, that's not an easy job and will push up the price of the routers quite substantially.
And then there's all the support calls from people who can't access their router because they couldn't find the password/lost the bit of paper with it written on etc...

It can't be that hard, because at least one manufacturer has figured it out.

I have an ActionTec router, provided to me with my Verizon FIOS service. WiFi was pre-enabled, but with a random SSID and random WEP password. Both of them (plus the MAC address) were printed on a sticker affixed to the bottom of the router.

I can change any of them, but they will return to the defaults on the sticker if I do a hard-reset. Of course, I would have preferred that they had pre-configured it with WPA instead of WEP, but this is a step in the right direction.

Re:Do you know how much time that takes

[compro01]

Actually, they could put in a unique password into each router as sold (which will add to the price as you have stated)

the 2wire residential gateways my ISP uses have exactly that. the default key is a psudo-random string of numbers printed on the modem, right next to the seriel number.

the wireless is disabled by default (for security reasons, and it can cause problems with the IPTV service also), but when you enable it, WEP is enabled by default (for compatibility reasons, but you can change it to WPA easily or just turn encryption off completely too in the same menu).

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[Lord Apathy]

Or you could just be a true geek and drape it over the ceiling fan and lights along the roof. Or just run it along the floor in plan site. Sure it looks shitty but who gives a fuck? Kind of sucks if you have a cat or a dog that likes the chew on cables though. But on the other hand that problem is fixed real quickly if you leave one of those high voltage power cords along the floor. It can be kind of messy though and there is the smell...

These questions are answered

[postbigbang]

1) all the vendors that I've seen have WPA turned on by default. They didn't use to, but then cars didn't have seat belts years ago, either.

2) you can find lots of information about bandwidth. The same site as the article cited has product reviews on ftp throughput; it's about a max of 3/5ths stated bandwidth or less.

3) this already happens. Use 802.11a instead. There are tons of non-interfering channels and you can get double-data-rate schemes with them.

4) someone using your wifi might be legal, but it depends strictly on where you live and what laws apply there. Generally, it's not legal in the US, but there have been few prosecutions. 'Hotspots' are generally thought to be legal to use if they self-identify as 'free wifi' or 'hotspot' etc.

5) use free WiFi sources where you find them. Go to muniwireless.com to understand how muni-wifi projects are tougher than they seem. Nice idea. Expensive and tough to do, and to manage (low) expectations.

Burning questions?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the most burning question about WiFi would have to do with the laptops on the network!

Missing the point completely

[Lockejaw]

What the heck are we going to do about everyone and his bro having his own wireless router? It's a special kind of heck when you've got an apartment complex with 7 or 8 or 10 wireless networks all in range and all competing.

How is that really a problem?

Because there are only 11 channels (in the USA). There's also a fair amount of splatter, so it's recommended that only channels 1, 6, and 11 be used. The WiFi band is getting pretty crowded.

Re:Missing the point completely

[Anonymous Coward]

The easy solution to this would be to tell your router that you live somewhere else, giving yourself a completely free channel.

Re:Signal Strength

[dbdweeb]

I'm interested in this too. I provide support for a church that's 2 miles from my house and would like to offer free services to the community.

VoWiFi FUD

[mach1980]

The article mentions VoWiFi quality as poor, which makes me believe that the writer is handling the truth somewhat irresponsibly.

I work for one leading VoWiFi company that currently installs a lot of systems at US hospitals. Do you think the hospital administrations should accept anything than perfect performance?

A MOS of 4.2 using ETSI's own measurements and seamless handover is what we are talking about. Not FUD about dropped calls etc. Our i75 passed Cisco's own certification program before their own product and has won a number of prices for best product.

Y.T.

Re:VoWiFi FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but try running VoIP behind your wireless router (which is itself behind your ISPs modem/router), and call someone on a cell phone and tell me how great the call quality is - and don't lie.

Re:VoWiFi FUD

[mach1980]

Yea, voip over Internet is not something we recommend. We do enterprise solutions over tightly controlled infrastructure which makes helluva difference, pardon my french.

But hey, the article mentions the WiFi as the culprit, not the Internet :)

Y.T.

Can They Stop +1, Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

the military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL complex?

Behind Baseboard

[dunc78]

What I did was a little more involved, but unnoticeable upon completion. I removed the baseboard from my walls, put a whole in the drywall at each stud, and snaked the cables in between the studs. The hole at each stud was wide enough for the cable to come out one side of the stud and go back in the other side and tall enough so there was plenty of room to squish cables into. After snaking the cables, I just nailed the baseboard back up, being careful where you put the nails. To get between floors I just used the area where the air conditioner return went.

Re:Behind Baseboard

[pedestrian crossing]

To get between floors I just used the area where the air conditioner return went

I hope you are using plenum cable for those between-the-floors runs...

Re:Behind Baseboard

[dunc78]

Plenum is only needed if the cabling is actually in the duct work, so toxic fumes don't spread throughout the house. Mine was outside of the ductwork, in the area framed for the ductwork.

My answers, now forward this to 20 friends...

[pla]

What impact will 802.11n have?

It will replace 802.11a/b/g, but beyond that, none. Speed really doesn't count as the biggest problem with wireless - I'd personally put "reliability" at #1 and "security" at #2.


Which wireless security threats are scariest?

The DOJ sniffing your traffic from outside rather than needing to at least enter the building (and thus possibly get caught on your security camera(s)).


What of wireless VoIP?

What of it? Whether you use a VOIP set that connects via 802.11, or a VOIP set that connects a base station via ethernet and has a cordless handset makes no difference. Except, perhaps, that while the 2.4GHz spectrum has gotten rather crowded lately, the 800MHz range used for cordless phones has become less congested in recent years.


Will your organization need to change to support enterprise mobility?

Probably, because most enterprise apps tweak if they lose their network connection even momentarily - See my first answer.


How do you control costs in an expanding mobile and wireless environment?

"The only winning move is not to play".


What can you do to stop wireless denial-of-service attacks?"

1) Use a wire.
2) Wait for the entropic death of the universe.
Seriously, no realistic solution exists between those two - A wireless DOS doesn't take anything high-tech... A spark-gap transmitter will do nicely. And don't forget "unintentional" DOSs... At my house, I suffer one every few second due to a nearby airport's radar (again, see my first answer), thus I almost exclusively use a wired connection except for totally noncritical and connection-state-less uses such as surfing the web from my couch.

Re:My answers, now forward this to 20 friends...

[walt-sjc]

connection-state-less uses such as surfing the web from my couch

HTTP uses TCP which is a connection oriented protocol. It works for you because of retransmits and the fact that you can't tell if a web site is just being slow or if there is a network problem (lost packet), and the fact the the connections are "short" in duration (unlike a big file transfer or SSH session.) Keep in mind that unless you disable keepalives, you can see even more frequent problems with web sessions.

I use wired connections wherever reasonable to do so, and re-wired my entire house to the point where there is a 48 port switch that is pretty full, even though only about half of the ports are active at any one time. I use VoIP hardphones (and some analog) too which ups the port usage significantly. I even have multiple drops in the detached garage. I look at it as future proofing. Conduit allows easy cable replacement (it's all tested/certified cat6 now... Plus the RG6UQS of course.)

I've played with WiSIP (WIFI) phones and have been quite underwhelmed with their reliability (horrible.)

Nice.

[newr00tic]

Nice one, Joe ;)

You ain't looking hard enough

[Khyber]

Not ONE of my Netgear routers has WPA by default turned on. And that's from the earliest v1 of their Wireless-g router to v6 (most recent from my research.) Nor do any of my Cisco-branded Linksys routers. Every last one of them wireless.

Re:You ain't looking hard enough

[postbigbang]

How awful. I stand corrected.

Re:You ain't looking hard enough

[Khyber]

How awful none of the other ones around in my neighborhood have them on by default (from D-Link to Belkin.) At least I know how to secure mine!

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[tekshogun]

The problem with putting anything over your house power-wiring is similar to the Broadband Over Powerlines project issues. The introduction of a new signal on a common wiring system creates interference on certain frequency bands. Also, the reliability and stability of the connection is dependent on how well maintained and installed your wiring is. You have to understand, your introducing voltage on a AC line. Plus the whole thing is open to a powersurge. That could be bad, and for those homes that do not have a back-feed preventer (what ever they are called), is it possible for a neighbor to "see" or you network. This could be especially interesting in an apartment complex or condo.

Here's one killer for you

[Khyber]

I posted above about my routers not having WPA on by default. Here's a kicker for you. These things lose WIRED connections when the wireless is on and I pick up my phone. (All my DSL filters are new and this doesn't happen when wireless is turned off on the router.) Talk about intermittent connections. It's sad when Netgear (the most responsible but not the only culprit) kills your wired connection when your wireless channel becomes clogged or noisy thanks to cordless phones. Who the fuck authorized the usage of 2.4 GHZ with wireless routers when the phones already had that spectrum? I'm also sick of cell phones interfering with my old 900MHz cordless. The FCC needs a square kick in it's nuts.

Re:Here's one killer for you

[DogDude]

Oh, you're right. I've already seen that. For some reason, my business-class DSL modem/router that I "have" to use (according to Ma Bell), has a WAP integrated into it. I learned that lesson really early, and disabled it.

Re:Here's one killer for you

[walt-sjc]

You don't have to use it. Go get a Sangoma S518 ADSL PCI card and stick it in a linux box. Traffic shape / firewall to your hearts content. It works Very Very well.

Re:Here's one killer for you

[DogDude]

Thanks, but Linux is just too complicated. I'd rather just have a simple web-based admin on a dumb router that. I haven't run across one (yet) that won't let me just disable the wireless entirely, which is what I always end up doing.

Re:Here's one killer for you

[eXFeLoN]

Use a linksys WRT-54G with a new bios. I never loose connection.

Less congested? WTF?

[Khyber]

Never had an 800 Mhz cordless. Every one I've ever seen in stores in the USA, in Texas and Tennessee, is either 45MHz (old), 900 MHz, or 2.4 or 5.8 GHz. My 900Mhz gets congestion and loses connection to the base station everytime anyone in my neighborhood picks up their damned cell phone, from my next-door herbalist to the idiot in the ricer Mustang down the street. Even my stereo picks that crap up, and I get that annoying bzzt-bzzt-bzzzzzzzzzzzzt thru my speakers.

MOD parent up

[crossmr]

This is the real reason why it should have a modicum of security enabled. To show you made an effort. It might not be long before you're held accountable for what your neighbour did on your connection, even with a complete lack of evidence. It sounds like great way to deny an IP crime, "My wireless access point was unsecured, anyone could have done it". It takes a small law attached to a wheat bill to say that people are required to take reasonable steps to secure their wireless connections, and you're spending 20 years in jail for facilitating child pornography, you'd probably even be required to register as a sex offender.

But hey, its all good. While bubba has you bent over the bed, you can feel awesome about how you let complete strangers use your connection in a pinch.

I do use wired connections

[rsilvergun]

I do consulting work, and my customers want wireless. They've been sold on it by the big box retailers and they want it. The people who need to fix this are the ISPs and phone companies, who ought to be rolling out municipal wireless. But they're too busy trying to figure out how to charge the most money for the least service, so they're twiddling their thumbs.

7. My router keeps eating my baby!

[katamerry_damatree]

http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/ 2007-05-27--the-truth-about-wireless-devices.html

Scaring People into Not Sharing Wireless

[billstewart]

Yes, it's theoretically possible for Bad Things to happen with open wireless. (Moderately Bad Things have even happened to me - a neighbor's laptop got virused and used my guest wireless connection for spamming for half a day once.)

But basically it's rare, and the scare stories about Bad Things That Could Happen If You Share Wireless appear to mostly be propagated by the kinds of broadband companies that don't want increased traffic on their nets, and by the kinds of pundits who get their reputation points by scaring people. They tend to overlap a lot with the kinds of people who want to scare you about not being an Evil File Sharer.

In spite of being a crypto geek, I run open wireless at home, so that guests can use it, and neighbors can use it if they need to, and do my crypto at the application layer (VPNs, encrypted SMTP.) I can usually see about 6 wireless nodes from my apartment, half of them unencrypted, plus there's Google out on the street. The main problem I've run into is that sometimes my laptop will grab a neighbor's wireless instead of mine, especially if somebody runs their microwave oven, and one of my neighbors has a firewall that blocks my work VPN, so I may wade through the limited documentation on my wireless and set up WMA.

Unfortunately, the security model I want isn't what WMA was built for - I'd like to encrypt my conversations, but leave access open, and WMA seems to only give you both or neither.

Parent is on crack

[LurkerXXX]

And when someone cracks your WPA/WAP encryption or weak password and downloads the kiddie porn, you now are going to bear sole responsibility for all packets to/from your machine because 'no one else could possibly have done it, the machine was secured'.

But hey, it's all good. While bubba has you bent over the bed, you can feel awesome that you didn't let anyone legitimate use your connection in a pinch.

Re:Parent is on crack

[crossmr]

I didn't say you're required to lock it up like fort knox. The law would look more favourably on you for attempting a reasonable level of security then not. Not attempting any leaves your connection looking inviting. If they don't find any evidence you have the child porn in either case, they could potentially be harder on you if your access point is open. It is much like a gun. If you don't properly secure it, and your child gets a hold of it and shoots someone (accidentally or otherwise) they're going to be pretty hard on you if you left it loaded on the couch. If your kid has to bring in a safe cracking team to break into something to get the gun, they're not likely to be anywhere near as hard on you (if at all). The fact that people can use open access points to commit a crime isn't a state secret. If you really want to run that risk, go nuts.

I'm all for open access points all over the place, but you have to recognize the climate of fear and overreaction and ignorance that exists in some areas. If you want to remove that, work to do so, before you go around leaving yourself open for a new bed mate.

Re:Parent is on crack

[LurkerXXX]

It is much like a gun. If you don't properly secure it, and your child gets a hold of it and shoots someone (accidentally or otherwise) they're going to be pretty hard on you if you left it loaded on the couch.

What a complete load of crap.

Is there some law that says access points have to be controlled like guns?

Did you need to get a license for your wireless router?

Was there a 3-day waiting period to get one when you went to Best Buy?

Have you told your local Starbucks/coffee-shop or University that they better turn off their open access points or risk going to jail because they are essentially throwing around loaded guns?

No???

Having an open wireless access point isn't against the law. Why would they 'be harder on you' for doing nothing more than having an open access point? Either you have kiddie porn on your machine or not. If you don't then don't be a wimp and live your life in fear.

Do you put boots on all four tires of your car each night to make sure no one steals it and kills someone with it? Why not? THEY COULD!!!

Don't give in to the overreaction and ignorance. Fight it. We need to fight it.

Re:Parent is on crack

[crossmr]

No there isn't, but already we've seen court cases of people getting nailed for something illegal going on on their wireless access points. It still remains to be seen if they'll win.

Its just as ignorant to ignore the current political climate and go ahead with what you want to do because you think thats the way it should be. Its much more intelligent to work to change things before hanging it out there.

The open wireless connection is still an untested defense, and while it may potentially get you off in a criminal trial, it may not suffice in a civil trial where the burden of proof is lessened.

Why don't you take some time and look up what "inviting" means under the law and see how that applies to a wide open access point vs one where someone has at least tried to put security on it.

Its not hard for someone to spin a theory (Individual X left his access point open to cast reasonable doubt on any crime committed via his equipment, for all we know he has a portable device that we were unable to recover which had the kiddie porn on it). Even if the trial is a load of crap you've seen what the US can do to people even remotely suspected of a sex crime. Costs them a crap load of money, their life is often ruined, and when found innocent, its a footnote on a napkin in a gas station bathroom. (See Nancy Grace and Duke)

You want things to change, change em. Leaving your wireless access point open and leading by quiet obscure example isn't going to do a thing.

Re:Missing question

[Slashcrap]

Does it give cancer ?

Yes, but don't worry - wearing a magnetic bracelet will prevent cancer. Some kind of magic crystal will probably help as well. Apparently it's all quantum.

Here's your antenna...

[Anonymous Coward]

right here... it's about 2 miles long!.

But seriously, for outdoor 2.4GHz antennas, visit the FAB-CORP website. They sell all kinds of 2.4GHz WiFi and 5GHz 802.11a antennas. Also all the coax cables and adapters you'll need to connect a good outside antenna to most consumer-grade WiFi products too.

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[Slashcrap]

have you considered dlan (ethernet over electric wires)?

They really need to add support for PoE before I can consider it a viable technology.

That's quite a broad brush you've got there.

[WidescreenFreak]

News flash ... not everyone lives close to others.

I have a friend who runs his own business, as does his wife. So, both businesses are run out of their home using a business-class DSL connection. However, they live on a farm that is so far off any main road or highway that there is no way anyone would know they're there. To get to their farmhouse, which is in the middle of probably 16+ square acres, you have to drive about 1/2 mile on a dirt/stone road into a mountain valley. The nearest house is at least 1,000 feet away.

From a practical perspective, there is no one close enough to steal their signal, they are so far out of the way that there are far easier targets to find in order to steal bandwidth, and anyone stupid enough to do try to steal their bandwidth will easily be within sight of the farmhouse. So, why should they be forced to do encryption when someone stealing their signal is completely impractical?

Of course, that doesn't address the whole idea of forcing someone to use encryption if they're too stupid to do it on their own in someplace like an apartment building, but others have already tackled that topic.

Please re-read my post...

[maillemaker]

>Yeah, all those people at Starbucks with laptops 'seeking out anonymity by piggybacking on their WiFi ' are scary.
>Our University also provides open wireless access to the local community.

You will note I said:

"People seeking out anonymity by piggybacking on /my/ WiFi is scarier to me than your average drive."

Emphasis on "my" added.

I, and the GP are not talking about intentionally open WiFi hotspots like you are.

We are talking about people hooking into home WiFi networks.

The only people likely to be using these are ignorant nearby neighbors or people up to no good.

Re: DSL on 1 phone outlet

[cez]

...you might try contacting your DSL provider, or visiting your local Radioshack to pick up a DSL splitter. We use DSL at times when cable isn't an option for backup circuits and sometimes run into problems with faulty splitters or ones that have not been installed at all!

goodluck.

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[compro01]

Plus, for reasons I don't understand, the only phone socket that works for DSL is in the bedroom.

that would be because your house uses a central filter, rather than in-line filters for the DSL. the thing is hardwired in so that only that line will work with DSL and everything else (phones, etc.) has the DSL frequencies filtered.

the reason for it over the in-line filters is that it tends to work better than the in-line filters, so the central ones are preferred by ISPs as they make for more reliable service, as there is a single point of failure, rather than many, as one failed in-line filter can really screw the service up.

as for networking, newer powerline networking works remarkably well (far far better than the old crap and plenty fast for streaming video in my experience)

Re: Another good reason to secure the access point

[Douglas Goodall]

If a neighbor uses peer to peer services for a while, your internet connection can be swamped with requests from all over the world looking for the neighbor's computer. Even if you subsequently secure the AP, the spurious traffic can go on for months afterwards, spoiling your internet service for quite some time. I used to have an open AP and let my neighbor use it. I told him no KAZAA. He did it anyway, and it killed my DSL for almost a year. It is just not worth the risk. Especially if you have fixed IP numbers. If you don't, then pity the poor person who gets your number next and its the p2p target.

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[pedestrian crossing]

or those homes that do not have a back-feed preventer (what ever they are called)

Um, they are called power meters. My understanding is that a power meter will not pass the frequencies that DLAN runs over, so there is no "leakage" beyond the meter.

good

[webmonkey44]

this article was a good idea!

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[tekshogun]

Actually, the power meter does nothing but measure power usage (http://www.seed.slb.com/qa2/FAQView.cfm?ID=1160). What I was thinking about was a positive interlock system which most homes will not and do not have because they do not need them based on how typical power distribution works. A PIS is typically installed when a generator is professionally linked to the powergrid of your home and it prevents the generator from trying to power the entire neighborhood or electrocuting some poor guy working on the lines (which is partly why electricians still have to be so careful even when they've cut power from the main transmission lines).

Plus, Devolo, on of the creators of the dLAN equipment does not directly answer the question on their site when asked if a neighbor can see the network, they specifically state this:

Question: Can my neighbour listen to my data when he is connected with the same power supply?

Answer: devolo absolutely advise you to use the internal device DESpro Encryption! Entering a password which differs from the factory default will activate the encryption and will protect your network.

And here is a hard to find article on Yahoo's Tech site that explains this issue in the security section:
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/powering-up-with-the-elec tric-company-for-home-network-usage/153487
It mentions that homes on the same transformer or share similar transmission lines that have been stepped down could potentially see each other's network if such hardware is being used, hence the push from the companies to just encrypt the network. . . which can be hacked anyway. Hmmm, I was think about this system, but now I don't think so for sure.

Re:Somewhat OT question about wireless network

[tekshogun]

As for the frequency of the signal, the meter wouldn't necessarily prevent that if that is what you meant (by the grade of the wiring). It is no different than the wiring in the rest of your house which allows for dLAN technology. Plus these devices measure alternating current, they're complicated devices I'm sure.

No one "has" 2.4 GHz

[Old Man Kensey]

Who the fuck authorized the usage of 2.4 GHZ with wireless routers when the phones already had that spectrum?

The phones didn't "already have" that spectrum. 2.4 GHz is "non-licensed" spectrum, meaning it's open to anyone's use with caveats. Anyone can build a 2.4 Ghz (or 900 MHz or 5 GHz) device as long as it follows certain rules about max power output (see here for details). Originally 900 MHz/2.4 GHz/5 GHz was "industrial, scientific & medical" use -- it wasn't intended for radio transmission at all, it was to designate certain bands off-limits to radio because ISM devices radiated lots of incidental noise in those bands.

You can build a 2.4 GHz white-noise radiator as long as it follows the FCC rules for the spectrum. It'll piss off your neighbors with 802.11 or cordless phones but there's not a damn thing they have a right to do about it.

802.11n = increased demand? Say what?

[Old Man Kensey]

In the article one of the enterprise guys is talking about how gigabit is basically a requirement for implementing 802.11n: "'We're mostly "100 meg" to our buildings,' says Michael Dickson, network analyst at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. '[For 11n,], we'll need gigabit switches in the closet with 10-gigabit uplinks. That's a definite cost, almost a necessary cost for 11n.'" This made my eyes cross and my brain squitter at itself confusedly, as last I checked, the size of the local pipe didn't make any difference to the performance of the upstream links; in other words, if it's going to suck with 802.11n, doesn't that mean it actually sucks right now? Is this an actual issue of some sort that's just written about poorly, or has somebody been promoted past his level of competence?

Re:Signal Strength

[si618]

You mean boost your signal strength? Have a look around http://wifi-link.com/

If you know the direction in which you want to transmit, go with a yagi or grid, otherwise go omni.

I'm looking at shelling for a 15dbi omni antenna as I've just moved into a ADSL blackspot and figure there's bound to be a few open networks closer to my telephone exchange :)