Schneier Says 'Steal this Wi-Fi'

apolloose noted Bruce Schneier's latest entry on Wired where he talks about insecured wifi networks, and suggests that you Steal this WiFi. Basically, since insecure WiFi is everywhere, why not? You're helping make the world a little better for someone else.

Comments

Beware of strangers bearing gifts

[Applekid]

Sure, everyone please use my unsecured local Wi-Fi access point. I'm giving back to the community... ... and the community in turn will have all traffic filtered through a box that will sniff passwords, private keys, you name it.

So please "steal this Wi-Fi" since I need a few more social security and credit card numbers.

Yeah! But firmware and software changes would help

[presidenteloco]

1. Clients (laptops) default installed wifi software (hint: Steve Jobs are you reading???) need a scanning
mode which does not waste my time telling me about all the password or mac-address locked wifi
basestations, and only advises me about open ones.

2. Basestation/routers need a simple-to-configure mode where they will let others into a separate
subnet that goes straight out to the Internet but does not see my home computers directly.

3. (Brain software/mindset change.) Americans need to stop reflexively calling sharing 'stealing'.
You've been trained into this terminology by those who have already stolen everything and don't
want you to get it back.

FON and Co

[PhillC]

There are already a number of organisations/initiatives around that actively encourage you to purchase their wireless routing products and then open up access to everyone.

I'm a member of FON, which allows you to allocate a specific amount of bandwidth for sharing if you're using one of their routers - say 1MB of your 8MB ADSL, which neatly overcomes the first poster's issue of not having enough bandwidth for their own nefarious purposes. After being a member of FON for 12 months they actually sent me three free wireless routers at Christmas, which I gave away to friends hoping that they too will join and share bandwidth.

There's another company I heard about, US based, that does something similar, but I can't think of their name right now.

However, I wonder about my ISP's stance regarding sharing WiFi for free with others. Does it violate their Ts&Cs? Do I care enough to actually find out? No!