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Auto-Scanning the Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs
MichaelSmith writes "I code on the tram, going to and from work, and I noticed that there are a lot of WiFi access points along the way. So one week I made it my job to write an automatic scanner which runs from a cron job every minute during commuting times. My backup script pushes the new AP names to my web server and you can read it online. It is a mixture of the straightforward, naive and funny, with a few pop culture references along the way. The first column in the file is the number of access points with that name. The second column is the AP name, in brackets to pick up white space." Why can't "Dress Me Slowly" and "Domestic Bliss" just share an AP?
The SSID I use is "Honeypot"
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
My favourite is the tie fighter: ]-o-[
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Huh? There's nothing illegal about logging the names of Wifi networks. Or at least there shouldn't be, as that would be completely crazy.
It's aking to noting the names people display publicly next to their doorbells, just easier to do. He didn't connect to any of the networks, just log their names. Nothing wrong with that.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
"dress me slowly" is a retro clothing store on Nicholson St in Fitzroy. The tram route is therefore route 96 in Melbourne Australia..
What? This wasn't one me those tram spotters quizzes?
Besides the fact that assuming someone such as yourself uses WPA/WPA2 PSK, the SSID is seeded with the hash and by using the default one, you leave yourself open to the likes of rainbow table attacks - http://www.renderlab.net/projects/WPA-tables/
Upside-Down-Ternet.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Indeed. It's public information, broadcast on some of the most public of the public airwaves -- the 2.4GHz ISM band. Nothing needs decrypted (therefore, various satellite and terrestrial broadcast rules don't apply, nor the DMCA), and nothing needs accessed (therefore, various computer access rules don't apply). Further, an SSID is too short for a meaningful copyright, and trademark law doesn't apply since it's not used in trade. And, of course, recording and publishing these things is simply recording and publishing a list of facts; a practice which has long been protected by various laws and rulings.
Kid-proof tablet..
Hiding the SSID decreases your security. When the access point broadcasts the SSID, the clients passively listen for it when they're not in range. When the SSID is hidden, clients broadcast the SSID in search of the wireless LAN wherever they are. This tells attackers about your laptop. There's even a ready-made attack tool for this: the "JaSager" (an implementation of "Karma") will listen for the probe requests and pretend to be your access point. If your WLAN is encrypted, you won't fall into that trap, but anyone who uses MAC address filters and hidden SSID as the only access control mechanisms is instantly MITMd. Even if you can avoid fake access points, your laptop still leaks your SSID and any information that may give (your name? your address? an obscenity?). Don't turn off SSID broadcasts.
He declared that the SSID he uses "is what the thing came with", which is probably a bad choice and definitely bad advice, since it can't be assumed that default SSIDs are not the same for many devices. Some manufacturers uses SSIDs with random character sequences, but many don't. The SSID is indeed used as a seed value in the calculation of the session keys, so not using a standard SSID increases the security.
Besides, there are other good reasons for choosing a unique SSID: Your laptop won't try to connect to other networks with the same SSID as yours and it makes debugging simpler. There's no need to be cute, witty or offensive, but not changing the default at all is not a good idea.
I saw one near a Subway restaurant that said "Jared Is Still Fat"
Also died laughing.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
I got rid of of passwords, WPA,WPA2,WEP or whatever crap and just changed my SSID to "$5.99 per minute".
I check the logs and have never seen a single person connect to my router.
I leave an AP open using my street number as SSID. Its outside my firewall and bandwidth is throttled to 15% of my 15/25 Fios. I check the logs sometimes. Its usually someone who came out on a service call, probably logging the job and gettting directions to the next gig. I saw repeated connections once so I blocked the mac address. Shortly after, my close freinds next door noted to me that thier wireless stopped working. I went over and set up their Fios router for wireless.