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The Wi-Fi Hacking Neighbor From Hell

Hugh Pickens writes "Barry Ardolf, a Minnesota hacker prosecutors described as a 'depraved criminal,' has been handed an 18-year prison term for unleashing a vendetta of cyberterror that turned his neighbors' lives into a living nightmare. Ardolf hacked into his next-door neighbors' Wi-Fi network and used it to try and frame them for child pornography, sexual harassment, various kinds of professional misconduct, and to send threatening e-mail to politicians, including Vice President Joe Biden. The bizarre tale began in 2009 when Matt and Bethany Kostolnik moved into the house next door to Ardolf. On their first day at their new home, the Kostolnik's then-4-year-old son wandered near Ardolf's house. While carrying him back next door, Ardolf allegedly kissed the boy on the lips. 'We've just moved next door to a pedophile,' Mrs. Kostolnik told her husband. The couple reported Ardolf to the police, angering their creepy new neighbor (PDF). 'I decided to "get even" by launching computer attacks against him,' said Ardolf, who downloaded Wi-Fi hacking software and spent two weeks cracking the Kostolnik's WEP encryption. Then he used their own Wi-Fi network to create a fake MySpace page for the husband, where he posted a picture of a pubescent girl having sex with two young boys. Ardolf turned down a 2-year plea agreement last year to charges related to the Biden e-mail. After that, the authorities piled on more charges, including identity theft and two kiddie-porn accusations carrying lifetime sex-offender registration requirements."

387 of 584 comments (clear)

  1. 2 weeks for a WEP? by LordAzuzu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Noob! :)

    1. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      He obviously is, encase there is anyone on this site who knows little about wireless security it only takes a few minutes to crack WEP and it is extremely easy to do.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    2. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by trum4n · · Score: 1

      My router (netgear recertified 20$ 802.11N unit) blocks you for 5 minutes if you fail 10 times to get the key. That will set you back a few days. I still run WEP 64bit. Never had a problem. Don't rightly care.

    3. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by DJLuc1d · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't matter, WEP attacks can be performed offline.

    4. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by phillips321 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ummm, WEP requires enough IVs to crack, either through sniffing the network and capturing IVs (slowly) or by using a replay attack against the router in order to massively speed up the IV collection process.
      WPA on the otherhand can be performed offline once the 4 way handshake as been captured.... (Which can be optained by waiting for a valid client to connect or by de-authing the clients and then capturing the handshake once they reconnect)

    5. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Eponymous+Coward · · Score: 1

      WEP is worthless. If your password is random characters, you could likely crack it faster than you can type it in.

    6. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by nedlohs · · Score: 2

      Given there's a passive attack against WEP the router can't possibly block you. Heck there's an active attack that just replays packets so you'll have to block yourself...

      Even the brute force key guessing technique is done offline on a single captured packet. Your router is magic!

    7. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      If a Slashdotter did that, he would be a noob. But this couple sounds like you average non-techie citizen who most likely setup the WiFi router out-of-the-box. Instructions and all.

      It would be interesting to know whether or not if the instructions recommended WPA2 or not. If not, and only defaulted to WEP, there might be grounds for a lawsuit against the manufacture. It's well documented that WEP is easy to crack into well before 2009.

      FYI, I don't believe in a litigious society. My opinion on the matter only reflects a devils advocate.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    8. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Tx · · Score: 2

      That's the only interesting part though, the rest can be summed up as "Complete asshole behaves like complete asshole". There was nothing technical clever or new about what he did, although he went further than most such incidents I've heard of, but few slashdotters will be at all surprised that that kind of thing is possible. The only surprise is that it doesn't happen more often, more subtly ... or does it?

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    9. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by LordAzuzu · · Score: 1

      You don't know what you talking about, man.

    10. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by mwvdlee · · Score: 2

      Presuming he didn't know anything about cracking WEP before he started, two weeks seems about right to get to grips with the tools and technology required.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    11. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by IANAAC · · Score: 2
      I only read the summary, so I don't know the specifics, but it's also entirely possible for someone to purposely use WEP. There are many older WiFi devices out there made less than 6-8 years ago even that offered WEP as the only "secure" option.

      I still have a WiSIP phone that only does WEP in use (and works like a champ!), although I keep it on a separate AP.

    12. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      How long does it take to type 'crack wireless encryption' into a search engine, download the first tool you find for cracking WEP, and run it? It's not like he needed to do cryptanalysis himself, he just needed script kiddie levels of skills.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    13. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by EraserMouseMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yea, no kidding. After reading an article about a sick pedophile trying to frame his neighbors my first thought was, "I could have done that in a fraction of the time." Quite reassuring to know everyone else on /. thought the same thing.

    14. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How long does it take to type 'crack wireless encryption' into a search engine, download the first tool you find for cracking WEP, and run it?

      That takes about 5 minutes. Then, you spend a bunch of time rebuilding your computer that has just been joined to a botnet and now has a rootkit installed. After rebuilding your computer, you search again - and this time select your download more carefully.

    15. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by bberens · · Score: 1

      Depends, does the time estimate include removing the multiple viruses/malware that came along for the ride with the WEP cracker?

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    16. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Larryish · · Score: 1

      Can you say "packet injection"?

      I knew you could.

    17. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by bberens · · Score: 1

      And the lesson here to all "hackers" out there, is not to overdo it. He probably would've gotten even and not be doing jail time if he hadn't gone over the top with threatening e-mails to the VP.

      --
      Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    18. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Absolutely. I used to have a Netgear SPH101 Skype Wi-Fi Phone. I remember having to use WEP for some reason because of it. But I do know that some routers will warn you with a floating tagged window stating that WEP is not very secure and ill advised over WPA2. I'm guessing the intent to CYA is pretty strong with companies these days.

      Of course, it could have also been a very old WiFi router with out-dated firmware. It simply wasn't an issue back then. I guess we will never know as it's not the focus of the article.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    19. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Larryish · · Score: 2

      Was he using a Hermes I card?

      If so, injection does not work out-of-the-box.

      It could well take 2 weeks to learn to use the tools and then gather sufficient data.

      BTW does anyone have an angle on patching a Hermes card for injection?

      Kernel 2.6.18 on Debian

    20. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      It took me about a week.

      This included the time to capture enough traffic to run the attack.

      All the guides I saw mentiooned linux, so it could take someone quite a while to figure out (try showing something as simple as burning an iso to a computer noob).

      I consider myself fairly computer competant, and I already had linux installed.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    21. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Applekid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's the only interesting part though, the rest can be summed up as "Complete asshole behaves like complete asshole". There was nothing technical clever or new about what he did, although he went further than most such incidents I've heard of, but few slashdotters will be at all surprised that that kind of thing is possible. The only surprise is that it doesn't happen more often, more subtly ... or does it?

      Reading the TFA from ars, the reason why he was caught was because he wasn't clever at all:

      1) The only reason why he was caught is because his malicious actions were intertwined with his normal web traffic (his name in plain text and Comcast packets). He could have used a clean purpose-built computer for his torture, like a laptop, that wasn't configured for his own network at all, and hid it in a safe deposit box or something and they never would have figured out where it's coming from without a long and arduous task with a spectrum analyzer.

      2) Ardolf did so much stuff on the target network that it raised suspicion. It's the same thing that happens to regular criminals: they get greedy and keep coming back for more. If he just went right for the terrorist threats and never ever connected again, his neighbors would never have had any reason to suspect external hacking. Even then, his prank emails to coworkers and social network profiles were so out there that they were obvious. There must have been many more subtle ways to do damage that aren't immediately obvious.

      3) The neighbor works for a law firm and they were willing to spend the resources to check out his home network and find the unknown device as well as install a sniffer. I don't see a middle-manager working for a sub Fortune-500 company getting that same kind of help, they'd probably sooner call him a schizoid and fire him instead of dealing with that.

      If he was a little smarter, I think he very well could have gotten away with it framing the innocent.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    22. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Informative

      It only takes a few minutes IF:
      A) there is a decent amoiunt of traffic going on.
      B) You do active cracking, sending all sorts of bogus traffic and making the router light up like a christmas tree, as well as causing suspicious disconnections
      C) Corollary to B, you have a wifi card capable of injection

      Otherwise, you need to do passive sniffing to get enough IVs to actually crack it, and that really depends on whether you are sniffing when their primary usage times are, and how much data they regularly pull over wifi.

    23. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Depends, does the time estimate include removing the multiple viruses/malware that came along for the ride with the WEP cracker?

      I've yet to see any problems of this type with Backtrack ....?

      Download it...install or to computer/thumbdrive...and voila, you're up and running....I've not heard of any malware problems with this before?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    24. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      i LOLed

    25. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by tomz16 · · Score: 1

      That is not how it works... Your router cannot "block" someone from collecting IVs. Once they have enough they can calculate the correct key.

    26. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by trum4n · · Score: 1

      It blocks brute force attacks.

    27. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by tomz16 · · Score: 1

      No, it does not "block brute force attacks"... If you are using WEP 64-bit you are *very* vulnerable regardless of what magical bullshit the marketing people put into your little router's brochure.

      #1) Nobody seriously attacking 64-bit WEP is going to try an online brute-force attack of the key. This scheme so stupid and the key space so large that it has never been seriously proposed AFAIK. There are much easier and more effective ways of getting your key in minutes (vs. centuries)!

      #2) Even if some idiot did try to brute-force the key, and your router indeed has some kind of additional "lockout", they would only have to change their adapters MAC every 10 tries.

    28. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Sometimes its the n00bs who blindly slam the router with bogus traffic. I mean, unless you like letting your target know youre targetting them...

    29. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by iamhassi · · Score: 1

      Bunch of time rebuilding? You mean format and reinstall? Or if it was really bad and MBR was wiped, throwing another 5+ gb (enough for OS) hard drive in there? That's not really "bunch of time". It's clear this guy was an idiot, thankfully most criminals are, smart people are too busy making money legally.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    30. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by The+Archon+V2.0 · · Score: 1

      Problem is we're talking about someone who doesn't even know what Linux is, never mind Backtrack. We're talking someone who's going to type "wifi crack program" into Google and click on the first result. Try to think down at that skill level, and it's something like asking the average *nix geek to rebuild his car engine using parts from a scrap yard that also contains randomly patrolling attack dogs. Can it be done? Probably. Can it be done easily and without causing other damage in the process? Nope.

    31. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Zebedeu · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but the sort of person who would do something like that in the first place is likely the sort of person who lacks the self-control required to "not go over the top".

    32. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Zebedeu · · Score: 1

      I don't know much about this subject, but I was under the impression that packet injection doesn't work with many wireless chips (or was it drivers?).

      I remember trying to hack a wireless network just to test the hacking tools a few years ago and I had to take the slow route because my laptop's wireless card couldn't inject packets. It was an Intel chip, if I'm not mistaken.

    33. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Anyone who still runs WEP is not likely to notice anything suspicious.

    34. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      The thing that always gets me is - don't you need a specific sort of WiFi card that you can put in promiscuous mode for this to work? And one that works under the particular flavor of OS your tool is on... So you probably can't just drop a LiveCD into random laptop and go to town. . .

      Or has it gotten so that any wifi card works now?

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    35. Re:2 weeks for a WEP? by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      You need a card that works. I was going to mention that.

      Also, some cards allow for an attack that let's you capture stuff faster, mine did not.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  2. I'm not sure if I'd prefer the above, or this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure if I'd prefer the above, or this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZqPQPhsuX4

  3. It's OK! by muckracer · · Score: 1

    They had nothing to hide anyway...

    1. Re:It's OK! by laurelraven · · Score: 1

      They had nothing to hide anyway...

      This.

      I get so sick of people using that excuse as a reason to not secure their computers or networks with even the barest minimum.

      --
      RTFA is Known to the State of California to cause cancer.
  4. Would MAC address filtering counter this problem? by Yold · · Score: 2

    What additional security measures can be taken to thwart script kiddies like this guy? Is MAC address filtering + WEP/WPA encryption (or one of those) sufficient security. At this point I want to shut the fucking WiFi off, but there are others in the household who wouldn't go for that.

  5. Good riddance by nharmon · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I often balk at the sentences our judicial system hands down (too much punishment for minor offenses, too little for major offenses), but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

    1. Re:Good riddance by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

      the only fitting punishment for a pedophile is execution, for me

    2. Re:Good riddance by grumling · · Score: 2

      Assuming there is NO DOUBT at all, like the accused actually performed the act in the courtroom.

      I'm against the death penalty, only because I see how the rest of government performs and can't believe the judicial system is any better.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    3. Re:Good riddance by wintercolby · · Score: 1

      I agree, but I think the standard for conviction in capitol punishment cases needs to be stronger than "Reasonable Doubt" because you can't take back execution.

      --
      Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
    4. Re:Good riddance by nschubach · · Score: 1

      I suppose he doesn't have to worry about them if he's dead.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    5. Re:Good riddance by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      I don't mind if you're executed for pedophilia. Seems extreme, but to each their own.

      It should be noted that pedophilia is relatively normal and has been throughout written history. It is only recently that pedophiles have been vilified.

    6. Re:Good riddance by erroneus · · Score: 2

      I have to disagree. Generally speaking, the source/cause of paedophilia is mental and/or emotional immaturity. There are other causes, of course, but "loving children" as it were is a rather misunderstood problem often accompanied by the very same witch hunt mentality you exhibit.

      And the problems we see these days are only made worse by current marketing and advertising trends, increased paranoia and a general failure to address causes and sources.

      Death is not a punishment. It is a remedy for society. Death should only be used when a person is otherwise incurable.

      As a society, we should have learned a tremendous lesson about the terror society places in people with "differences." People of different religions, sexual orientation and even political ideology have all been openly persecuted in this country [the US] until the tragedies were exposed and it became wrong instead of popular to do so. I speak of persecution of muslims and other non-christians, homosexuals and communist party members.

      It is when paedophiles have a fear if getting caught and persecuted that they are moved from touching children to killing them after being unable to control their impulses. I believe if these troubled individuals were allowed to deal with their problems in a way that does not immediately ruin their lives (which is not really an option which is presently available) we would see a great deal less of the tragedies we have seen over the years.

      Hate, fear and mistrust all come quite naturally to people and doesn't have to be taught or encouraged. And instead of teaching each other to grow past these animal fears, we justify and institutionalize them.

      And it's not like we haven't seen the classic pattern of human behavior before. We see it all the time and in our history. When alcohol was criminalized, birth was given to massive organized crime and violence. And the "war on drugs" helps keep all sorts of organized crime and violence alive and well. Examples are too obvious and plenty, I think. And while this is a problem that can definitely affect the way in which a child's mind grows and develops, there is more to the problem than simply identifying and prosecuting the offenders.

    7. Re:Good riddance by Tsingi · · Score: 1

      the only fitting punishment for a pedophile is execution, for me

      And if it turns out he was innocent? (Like THAT never happens)

    8. Re:Good riddance by Tsingi · · Score: 1

      Unless he slipped the kid the tongue or something, kiss = death penalty is a touch extreme.

      So, if he did slip him the tongue? Waste him?

    9. Re:Good riddance by Machtyn · · Score: 1

      I agree that the mother over reacted by calling the police. Marching up to the guy and giving a major scolding is more likely effective. If he then tried to kiss me, a good decking and then call the police. But seriously? A sustained hack attack against your neighbors because they confused your cultural greeting with pedophilia - especially retaliating in such a way that will mark you as a pedophile is not very smart at all.

    10. Re:Good riddance by rjstanford · · Score: 1

      I'd say not so much - although the recent lumping in of 17.9 year olds with 5 year olds has dramatically muddled the waters to the point where your statement is somewhat reasonable from a colloquial standpoint.

      --
      You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    11. Re:Good riddance by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I often balk at the sentences our judicial system hands down (too much punishment for minor offenses, too little for major offenses), but in this case I think the punishment fits the crime.

      Be careful with 'our'. In New Hampshire, this kind of sentence would likely be unconstitutional as it would not take 17 years to reform this guy. Imprisonment for the purposes of punishment is illegal here.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    12. Re:Good riddance by erroneus · · Score: 1

      Touche'! You are quite correct in that statement. I wish I had considered that. Indeed, it is a very important distinction. After all, one could say I am a "computer-phile" but I don't go around stealing or harming anyone else's computers -- I might like them, but I am under control and the same goes for women -- I'm your run-of-the-mill straight guy who likes women. That does not make me a rapist does it?

      A very sane statement to make.

    13. Re:Good riddance by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I'm against the death penalty, only because I see how the rest of government performs and can't believe the judicial system is any better.

      It's not, and maybe worse. Donate to The Innocence Project - they're saving innocent people from imprisonment and execution.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    14. Re:Good riddance by DarthVain · · Score: 1

      Yeah pretty scary. I think what pushes it over the top for me is the fact that he tries to abuse the judicial system to get his revenge. I think it just that the same system came back hard with a bitch slap.

      Hacking someones system to me is of very little concern. Using it they way he did is the serious part.

    15. Re:Good riddance by shoehornjob · · Score: 1

      In this case don't judge him a pedophile because he kissed a kid. If he has a record then yes there is just cause. Otherwise it's just bad judgement. I'm not saying what he did was right and if a stranger touched my daughter I'd be worried but if he really was a pedo why did he return the kid back to his parents. The mother kinda brought this on herself allthough there's no arguing the neighbor was a bit crazy.

      --
      "We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
    16. Re:Good riddance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The sex offender for life status smacks of abusing the law though to me. He should be charged with trying to entrap his neighbors but the kiddie porn law was for people into child porn, not a couple of pix to screw up a neighbor.

    17. Re:Good riddance by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      The question that I've often wondered about; but never been able to find any firm research on, is whether a defendant is (in terms of quality of legal process) better off being sentenced to death, rather than life without parole...

      Because they are so controversial, and seen as so final, most capital cases undergo years of procedural wrangling, and some attract comparatively high-powered external assistance; but life sentences are comparatively boring, if not a whole lot more pleasant than death sentences, and have thus evolved fewer additional procedural safeguards.

    18. Re:Good riddance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you ignore the fact that the death penalty does not actually deter violent criminal behavior. Pull the stats from the 2008 census for example. If you look at the states that have the death penalty vs those that do not, the average murder rate in states with the death penalty was 5.9 per 100K people while the murder rate in states without the death penalty was 4.8 per 100K people - about 18% less in states without the death penalty.

      In fact, there is a case to be made that people who live in an area that advocates killing people as being 'justice' seem to have lower inhibition against using violence, hence the 18% higher murder rate in those states.

      References:
      http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/population.html
      http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/law_enforcement_courts_prisons/crimes_and_crime_rates.html
      http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty

    19. Re:Good riddance by sglewis100 · · Score: 1

      In this case don't judge him a pedophile because he kissed a kid. If he has a record then yes there is just cause. Otherwise it's just bad judgement. I'm not saying what he did was right and if a stranger touched my daughter I'd be worried but if he really was a pedo why did he return the kid back to his parents. The mother kinda brought this on herself allthough there's no arguing the neighbor was a bit crazy.

      A complete stranger kisses her kid on the lips, and she brought it on herself? Yeah, next we'll learn the kid was dressed provocatively so he wasn't helping the situation either.

    20. Re:Good riddance by bughunter · · Score: 1

      Applying simple logic, he's admitting that he's a pedophile who endorses capital punishment for his crime.

      Get a rope!

      --
      I can see the fnords!
    21. Re:Good riddance by ryanov · · Score: 1

      I'm uncomfortable with this as it is likely mental illness related. I'm not comfortable executing someone who has compulsive behavior (though I am against all executions anyway -- let's try to be better than criminals).

    22. Re:Good riddance by ryanov · · Score: 1

      I agree that it was an initial overreaction, but his response somewhat shows that it's quite possible that it was the right course of action.

    23. Re:Good riddance by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

      Sorry for not phrasing that in an Amerocentric way that you would understand.

      "...in my opinion"

    24. Re:Good riddance by liquiddark · · Score: 2

      The dude kissed a little boy who wandered over to his house while he was bringing said little boy home. Murder is not the appropriate response.

    25. Re:Good riddance by wsxyz · · Score: 1

      An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a kiss for a kiss...

    26. Re:Good riddance by geekoid · · Score: 2

      pedophiloe appears to be a red herring.

      I am a parent. I also know a lot of other parents. It would not be unusual fro a 4 year old to random kiss someone who was carrying them, yes even on the lips.

      Read the PDF: It happened when she wasn't looking. Why the hell would she suddenly turn around when a stranger was holding her child?
      The child said it happened, but only after more then enough time for the memory to be implanted from hearing speculation from it's parents.

      Saying this incidence is pedophile is like says a mother kissing her child is incest.

      Of course, his response was so irrational that I think he probably should get a lot of therapy while in prison.

      AS to you specific claim, I can't agree to it, it's too general. What about when 2 17 years olds are dating, and then one turns 18? IS the pedophile? and it's not unheard of for that to happen. Should that 18 year old be put to death? even if it's the girl?

      Yes, we can sight examples where it's obviously wrong. But the edge cases are far to many to make a bold statemnt that they should all die.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    27. Re:Good riddance by geekoid · · Score: 1

      read the PDF. she didn't see anything, she heard something.
      Also, it would not eb uncommon for a 4 year old to kiss sonmeone, espcially if there where i a house hold where kissing is normal. The whole thing reads like some cheap dime story novel.
      "With her back to Ardolf, Bethany heard him plant a wet kiss on W.F. She wheeled around, grabbed W.K. from Ardolf’s arms and pulled her child inside the house. After shutting the front door, she ran upstairs and cried, saying “we’ve just moved next door to a pedophile.”"

      When my daughter was 4, if someone was caring her she would kiss them. Usually the person wouldn't be expecting it.
      If I asked after the fact 'did you kiss my daughter' they would say yes. But it looks really sinister when worded that way, doesn't it?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    28. Re:Good riddance by geekoid · · Score: 1

      It is a concern to me. Going around something thath as been set up so any rational person would understand the owner did not want trespass is wrong.

      Going into an open wi-fi, is not.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    29. Re:Good riddance by DarthVain · · Score: 1

      Sure I think it is wrong. Not 18 years in Shiv City wrong though.

      I wouldn't be thrilled about someone snooping around my computer, or even using my protected network, what is more concern is what they use that information for.

    30. Re:Good riddance by IICV · · Score: 1

      I'm against the death penalty, only because I see how the rest of government performs and can't believe the judicial system is any better.

      They aren't.

      Fundamentally, the problem is that there is nobody whose incentives are aligned with the defendant. The public defenders that they are normally assigned are overworked and not willing to put effort into the case unless it's clear the defendant is innocent, but the prosecution gets to pick and choose cases that it thinks it can win, one way or another - and when the prosecutor runs for public office, he can say he was hard on crime if he has a good conviction rate. Nobody in the judicial system "wins" if the conviction rate is low.

    31. Re:Good riddance by Jibekn · · Score: 1

      The problem ive seen, with alot of these 'what if' scenarios, is that an 18 year old, (or a 40 for that matter) having sex with another person past puberty, it not pedophilia. To be a pedophile, you have to be sexually attracted to prepubescent children, which is actually a rare condition. Sexual attraction to kids during the onset of puberty is Hebephilia, around the 11 to 14 mark is a little more common, while Ephebophilia the attraction to mid to late adolecents(15-19) has been in and out of social acceptance for many cultures.

      My point? each of those conditions can have different causes and treatments, and should not be lumped together.

    32. Re:Good riddance by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      From the court PDF:

      Matt Kostolnik
      then confronted Ardolf, who admitted he had kissed W.K. on the
      mouth.

      I obviously have no more idea than you if this guy is an actual pedophile or not, but given that he admitted to something that the vast majority of Americans would find creepy (kissing a stranger kid on the mouth), has a past record of irrational criminal behavior, and responded to this situation with child pornography and extremely irrational behavior, why give him this particular benefit of the doubt? If nobody denies he kissed the kid on the mouth, why fight that claim? That seems to me incredibly silly.

    33. Re:Good riddance by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      The mother brought it on herself....by letting her kid play outdoors? Are you kidding me? That's so representative of the "helicopter" parenting of American today it's horrifying.

    34. Re:Good riddance by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Matt Kostolnik then confronted Ardolf, who admitted he had kissed W.K. on the mouth.

      So how many complete strangers kissed your 4-year-old child on the mouth? How many single adult males?

    35. Re:Good riddance by Cederic · · Score: 1

      That does not make me a rapist does it?

      According to certain feminists, having admitted you're male was enough.

    36. Re:Good riddance by sglewis100 · · Score: 1
      Just reread the PDF. Still seeing the same thing where she heard a kiss, the kid reported a kiss, the man was chasing her "playfully" while the mom was insisting she come back to her, and I still see the part where he seems to have admitted it to the husband.

      When my daughter was 4, if someone was caring her she would kiss them

      Not sure if you meant someone was caring for her (this man was not, he was a complete stranger) or carrying her (this man should not have been, he was a complete stranger). One of my children *IS* four, and if a complete stranger started chasing her (playfully or not) ignoring me as I tried to retrieve her, I'd be a bit put off as well. We're not talking about the seniors in a restaurant who can't resist patting a cute kid on the head as they pass by and talking to the parent .. "such a cute kid". If one of those people were to chase her or kiss her, I would expect I would not remain idle.

      The man's criminal acts, before and after the incident, appear to back up the story that he's a creepy old man. PS: I've never downloaded child porn. Not even to "get somebody". But yeah, it's a crime. Even if it isn't just something you enjoy. I've never hacked a neighbor's wifi. I've never put up defamatory MySpace pages (or even put up ANY MySpace page for that matter). And I certainly never chased or kissed anyone's 4 year old without consent.

      But a main point of my response: Just because you and I disagree doesn't mean i didn't read the PDF or read it right. You just have a seemingly more lax tolerance level for people posing a threat (perceived or real) to your children. But based on what this guy did, it sure seems like a justified fear.

    37. Re:Good riddance by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      He probably would have gotten a lesser penalty if he just burned their house down.

      Same goes for any number of equally dire violent and non-violent crimes.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  6. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Informative

    What additional security measures can be taken to thwart script kiddies like this guy?

    Well, there's always physical security. You catch someone doing something like this, and you put them under arrest yourself and then hope they resist, at which point you may use necessary force to subdue them. In California, anyway. Bring a witness with a camera.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. perceived sleights by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    turned into byzantine obsession is a sign of a person who will do nothing but bring grief to anyone who ever touches his or her life

    if you ever meet this type, back off slowly smiling, then run like hell

    their feeling of disempowerment and helplessness (self-learned) and the eternal fight against that (fruitlessly projected outwards) is all they know, it defines their entire existence

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:perceived sleights by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      that is the grim calculus isn't it?

      there is no easy answer here

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    2. Re:perceived sleights by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      If they come after you, make sure you're living in a state with a good castle doctrine, and have a firearm?

      Oh, wait, that's death.

    3. Re:perceived sleights by definate · · Score: 1

      If it's the grim calculus, then just differentiate with respect to their ever changing mood, and slowly slowly back away on a tangent.

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    4. Re:perceived sleights by Captain+Sarcastic · · Score: 1

      Now, now - just a secant while I get out my cosh....

      --
      Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
    5. Re:perceived sleights by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      only on slashdot do orbital dynamics and social dynamics converge on the same subject matter ;-)

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    6. Re:perceived sleights by definate · · Score: 1

      They've always converged, other people just don't trace the functions far enough! :-)

      --
      This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    7. Re:perceived sleights by Sun · · Score: 1

      Since you're so full of good advices, please help me out with this one, then. What happens when, TWO DAYS before you move in to a new apartment you just bought, you find out that one of the neighbors is precisely such a person?

      Happened to a good friend of a good friend, which is to say, it happened to me. We're still fighting off the frivolous lawsuits.

      Shachar

  8. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

    Some nodes can change their MAC address, so you just need to monitor the network for a while and spoof a good MAC address which is not in use.

  9. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by LordAzuzu · · Score: 1

    Mac filtering + WEP is useless.
    Go for WPA2, and you are not 100% safe anyway. But better than WEP for sure...

  10. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by sjpadbury · · Score: 3, Informative

    From the summary:

    'I decided to "get even" by launching computer attacks against him,' said Ardolf

    Sounds like he confessed, so, um, yeah?

    --
    We're all full up on Crazy here...
  11. Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The guy didn't download the CP for sexual purposes. He's not a paedophile, just a warped anti-social individual.

    That register is for people who have a proven (and acted upon) attraction to minors; Those who are a danger to children. Adding him to the list dilutes it and mitigates its usefulness. What he did should be covered by libel / defamation laws. He deserves to be taken out of society for what he did to that family, but there's nothing in there which supports the idea that he's dangerous sexual offender.

    --
    Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    1. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by funkify · · Score: 1

      Um, actually, by most accounts he IS a pedophile. RTFS. He expressed physical intimacy to the victim family's 4-year-old son. They called the cops on his pedo ass, and his continued acts were in retaliation.

      I assure you it is far, far from normal for a grown man to go around planting smooches on 4-year-old boys.

    2. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Except for kissing his new neighbor's child full on the lips. If I had a new neighbor whom I'd only recently met do that to my child, I'd be ready and willing to have them on that list.

    3. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.

      Seriously... 2 years to 18... he is quite litterally getting 16 more years and a lifelong sex offender registration... because the prosecutor was insulted and wanted to become the persecutor.

      That said, no defense of this guys actions, he is clearly off his rocker. That still doesn't make this response appropriate

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    4. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 3, Informative

      but there's nothing in there which supports the idea that he's dangerous sexual offender.

      uh, so kissing their ten year old son on the lips against his will doesn't qualify?

    5. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by JSBiff · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter. He was in possession of, and *distributed* child pornography. It is against the law to be in possession of, and to distribute, child pornography, and if you break that law, you are a sexual offender.

      This person sexually exploited children (indirectly) by obtaining child pornography. Everyone who seeks out child pornography is participating in the exploitation of children. It doesn't matter what his reason for exploiting them is - he still exploited them.

      Plus, by making possession of child pornography illegal, with the threat of lifetime sex offender status, it gives police and prosecutors an additional tool, potentially, to help bust child pornography rings: by having the ability to charge those who possess child porn, they may be able to get them to give them information about where/who they got the child porn from, which may lead the police back, link by link, to the original person(s) who exploited those children.

      If he's truly guilty (I always do give anyone the presumption of innocence - it's quite possible the police are wrong about this - that's what juries are for, and hopefully they get it right), then I feel no sympathy for this guy - in that case, he *chose* to seek out child pornography *knowing* it was illegal, and if he had been successful, his *neighbors* would have been registered as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.

    6. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

      The guy didn't download the CP for sexual purposes. He's not a paedophile, just a warped anti-social individual.

      That register is for people who have a proven (and acted upon) attraction to minors;...

      All of this supposedly started because the parents claimed he kissed their child on the lips. If the kid acknowledged that happened, then combined with all of the picture / net stuff he did then getting on the registration isn't exactly "out there."

      Heck, a minor can be charged with a sex crime for taking a naked photo of themselves and texting it to their other minor friends... ridiculous but it still happens.

      An adult male doing stuff with pictures of minors will land him in hot water... whether it was for his pleasure or some other means.

    7. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 2

      While carrying him back next door, Ardolf allegedly kissed the boy on the lips.

      You know what that word means, right?

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    8. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Hoover,L+Ron · · Score: 1

      Umm kissing a underage boy on the lips while not a "dangerous" sexual offense certainly qualifies as sexual assault on a minor nonetheless. Besides that, this was not the first time he's been accused of fooling around with kids. I wonder if this clown was a USENET KOOK? If so the Feds killed 2 birds with one stone.

    9. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      You know how I know you didn't even read the summary...?

      --
      No sig today...
    10. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by nharmon · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I think you are mistaken about the purpose of the sex offender registry. It is not for people with a proven attraction to minors (which is not a crime by the way, just saying). It is for criminals whose crime is sexual in nature, regardless of whether the victims were minors or not. So you will find everyone from rapists to flashers on the registry.

      Claims he is not a "dangerous sexual offender" does reconcile with his behavior. In this case, the individual attempted to frame his neighbors as child pornographers. In doing so, he victimized the children depicted in those photographs as well as the neighbors.

    11. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by nharmon · · Score: 1

      Err: does NOT reconcile with his behavior.

    12. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      I can see I'm going to have to explain the word "allegedly" to a lot of Slashdotters today.

      Read the PDF document linked in the stub. There's no mention of a conviction. It'd be classed as "soft evidence" on any Enhanced CRB check in the UK (which is essentially another word for hearsay).

      By the way, you should consider what I say in my sig when I comment on subjects like this.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    13. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 2

      You know how I know you didn't read the linked PDF document regarding the sentencing, which would absolutely have stated that he was convicted of an offence for kissing that kid, instead of mentioning that it was only reported.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    14. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      I did consider both the word and the signature.. As evidenced, he admits retaliation for them calling the cops after he kissed their son, then admits to downloading child pornography to upload to this guys fake myspace page.. Downloading child pornography + kissing a child = Pedo in my books... Plus, (IANAL), but I believe the act of downloading child pornography is a sex crime in many jurisdictions, the idea being, that if there wasnt a consumer of the material, there wouldnt be creators.. barring the fallacy of that, its how the registry works... and I have no problem with the punishment and classification this guy has to deal with

    15. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 2

      ...another interesting thought occured to me.. Since this guy used sex as a weapon (framing somone for child pornography), wouldnt that be enough to classify him as a sex offender? Purely an question of interest, but I wonder if the legislation could be used in this way.

    16. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It doesn't matter. If I obtain some heroin and plant it on you to frame you, I am still guilty of a drug offense.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    17. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 1

      Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.

      This is the "Confession is good for the soul" philosophy. Like in the Witch Trials.

      --
      I am not a crackpot.
    18. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by rjstanford · · Score: 1

      Even though in many cultures that's completely normal, you'd be willing to force someone to move and, quite possibly, never have a real job again as long as they live, because they helped your child come home after they wandered away from their new house?

      You utter bastard.

      --
      You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    19. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      I dont see the problem with taking eye-witness accounts of alleged innapropriate touching of a child, combined with proof of (and confession of) downloading, and uploading child pornography as a solid reason this guy belongs on the list. To me, the charge is one count of accessing, and one count of making available, explicit images of children... The alleged inapropriate touching of a child just adds his already shady character, and demonstrates a history. Whether or not he got a boner has nothing to do with it.

      Disclaimer: I am talking about the guy in the story, not Combatso

    20. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by eth1 · · Score: 1

      While carrying him back next door, Ardolf allegedly kissed the boy on the lips.

      You know what that word means, right?

      allegedly, adv.: A word used reluctantly by the media to cover their arses while assigning guilt in the court of public opinion.

      (IMO, defendants should be held anonymous until convicted)

    21. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      Yes, but you're not sent to rehab and labelled a drug addict.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    22. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 1

      ANNNND....what's to say that the boy didn't just do this to people he liked? I've seen all kids from 1 until about 6 or 7 do something similar.

      What the guy did isn't right, but he shouldn't be labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life.

      As for the Sex Offender list, I find it causes more trouble than it prevents and it's already being misused. 18 year old boy goes out with 16 year old girl and has consensual sex and parents get pissed and have him incarcerated for rape. Girl has nothing to say about it because she's a minor. Because rape is a sex offense, he gets labeled that for the rest of his life. It happens all too often and should be stopped.

      --

      Gorkman

    23. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by batquux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unless you're a cop.

    24. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by sglewis100 · · Score: 1

      Even though in many cultures that's completely normal, you'd be willing to force someone to move and, quite possibly, never have a real job again as long as they live, because they helped your child come home after they wandered away from their new house?

      You utter bastard.

      I'm quite careful to behave in a way that's appropriate to the culture I'm presently residing in. When I honeymooned in Thailand, I was sure not to crack any jokes about the King, even though, in MY culture, while we don't have a King, it's perfectly acceptable to crack jokes about the people in charge. If someone does something like that to one of my children, and it was normal in their culture, but not in mine, and therefore upsetting to me or my boy, I'm going to lean on the side of protecting our family. Besides, calling the police doesn't put anyone on a sex offender list. Calling the police, seeing an investigation done, going to court, having the case tried, and having a jury decide, followed by a judge's sentencing does.

      If that seems harsh, I might suggest not touching my children.

    25. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 1

      This is true. However, the comment Mrs. Kostolnik made was defamation and she should have kept the thoughts to herself.

      All to often we say things that could set these nutters off. Better not to set the nutter off on YOU so be nice to him and don't piss him off.

      Not saying this guy shouldn't be put away, but sometimes we say things we shouldn't have said. This is one of those cases!

      --

      Gorkman

    26. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      What letter is this? All I recall reading about is that an incident where Ardolf kissed the neighbours' kid was reported to the police. No conviction.

      If there's other evidence for him being a risk to minors, you'd think it'd be in the stub as "convicted paedophile Ardolf..."

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    27. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by NoSleepDemon · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm glad someone is thinking of the children! Oh, wait. Sorry.

    28. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by mcmonkey · · Score: 1

      Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.

      Seriously... 2 years to 18... he is quite litterally getting 16 more years and a lifelong sex offender registration... because the prosecutor was insulted and wanted to become the persecutor.

      That said, no defense of this guys actions, he is clearly off his rocker. That still doesn't make this response appropriate

      Or put another way, he could have had 1/9th the sentence if he agreed to let the prosecutor pad had stats without forcing him to do his job. I don't think the 18 years is too high, but the 2 year offer was too low.

      In the meantime, where are all the 'WiFi wants to be free; I run an open access point for the neighborhood' folks?

    29. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 1

      OK, substitute "violent movie" for watching a video of a street fight posted on YouTube, or a car chase on Worlds' Funniest Cop Chases.

      Regarding the sig; Good point, but not necessarily an issue. I very rarely respond to ACs anyway.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    30. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by not-my-real-name · · Score: 1

      Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.

      Actually, he tried to frame someone else which, in my opinion, is pretty bad. There is some merit in letting him be punished for the crime that he tried to pin on someone else.

      --
      un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
    31. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Ahh, you have a good point. Rehab isn't necessarily punishment though. I think most drug offenders that go through rehab elect to go through it at the suggestion of the court (usually in lieu of tougher sentencing). I believe in most states someone could opt out of rehab and simply go to prison. Though I am not sure why anyone would...

      Though in the American justice system, there is not really any effort to rehab sexual offenders, anyhow.

      In the pedophilia case, I would suspect that simply digging around for this material is an indication of some some bigger problem than simply trying to plant evidence on someone. As the article states, he sent threatening letters to politicians, why not leave it at that? It probably came up in the case that the guy was already hoarding the images anyhow.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    32. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by liquiddark · · Score: 1

      Four year old. A four year old boy wandered into his yard and he carried the boy home and gave him a kiss. It may not be your particular comfort zone, but it's pretty fucking far from what we normally term pedophilia.

    33. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Not really, he's getting an extra 16 years because he wasn't smart enough to realize that he was getting off extremely lightly. If you read even the summary, it's clear that he's guilty on most if not all counts. He could have taken the deal knowing that there was a lot more that they could have gotten him on.

      This is just another case of somebody that's too stupid to realize that they'd get caught.

    34. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by black+soap · · Score: 1

      To me, trying to frame someone else for a crime is pretty heinous - especially that particular crime. Attempting to abuse the justice system by setting someone else up is a crime against society as a whole.

      If anything, I am offended that the prosecutor even offered the original 2-year deal. Good thing he didn't take it.

    35. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      I don't entirely disagree. That said, I tend to think that, if they were willing to give him 2 years for it... isn't the point about making sure he doesn't do it again more than anything? Is 16 years extra really needed for that? You really think 2, with a felony conviction on his record, be enough for that?

      I understand the "eye for an eye" or "eye for an attempted eye" even but, harsh punishment has never shown itself to be the most efficient way to reform.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    36. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by tverbeek · · Score: 1

      Our "criminal justice" system does the opposite of rehabilitate; it systematically and very effectively turns a person who has been convicted of (whatever) into a menace to society. In addition to the lord-of-the-flies social conditioning that takes place inside, the inability to return to a normal life after release (e.g. sex offender registries, no one will hire them) ensures that unless they have a very good support network still waiting for them, their life from then on will be one of criminal activity.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    37. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      Yeah, how many 4 year olds tell people that the neighbor kissed him on the lips? How many of them are completely making it up off the top of their heads?

      "allegedly" is a term to avoid libel/slander charges. When there is clear evidence (video tape) of a crime, they still use "allegedly" until the court rules either "guilty" or "innocent". It is procedural in nature, not reflective of guilt or innocence while reporting a story.

      I believe he did kiss the boy, the boy told his parents, the parents called the cops, the guy went nuts and did all the stuff he is accused of.

      If you don't believe he kissed the boy, fine, that is your right. You can believe that the whole thing was an elaborate setup and the guy is completely innocent of everything. After all the government is out to get him in collusion with the neighbors and planted all that evidence. I hear it was allegedly involving Sarah Palin!

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    38. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      " He expressed physical intimacy"
      wow, inflame much?

      How about this "The child gave him a quick kiss on the lips as Aldorf set him down"?

      Oh, now it's just an innocent child doing something harmless.

      Saying 'physical intimacy' shows a wide range of possibility and would only be used to incite an emotional anger deserved for the worse case, even though what happened isn't anywhere near that. 'physical intimacy' is anything from holding hands to sex.

      Hey, Some times my daughter would surprise someone carrying her by giving them a kiss on the lips as the set her doesn't. Should all those people be put in jail?
      Hey, I bet the child's mother had "expressed physical intimacy " with her child, maybe she should be arrested for incest?

      read the PDF. It's written for the sole reason of creating FUD.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    39. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      Including a cop. Cops just get away with it, which is entirely different problem.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    40. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      right here. Do you have a point of some sort?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    41. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "child pornography + kissing a child = Pedo in my books."

      Your book is more of a pamphlet. . . and a stupid one at that.

      He downloaded the CP for retaliation, not sexual reasons.
      We have no idea what happened. The child may have kissed him. Read the PDF. No one knows what happened, and it reads like some emotional piece of crap.

      So there really isn't any evidence of pedophilia. There is a ton of evidence of other wrong doing, and irrational response to an accusation.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    42. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by xigxag · · Score: 1

      Generally, a sex offender's registry is for people who commit sexual offenses. It's not necessary for the victim to be a minor, nor it is necessary to prove "attraction." Additionally, mere possession of child porn is a sexual offense, and is prima facie considered dangerous to children in the eyes of the law. Therefore, there's no mystery as to why this person is on the registry, regardless of what allegedly happened with the boy.

      --
      There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
    43. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by qbast · · Score: 1

      You don't think he actually BOUGHT the picture? If not then his actions definitely did not help with trade. Actually downloading CP pictures should be rewarded. As everybody heard from MAFIAA reps pirating stuff destroys media industry. So everybody should download CP pictures for free and cause those filthy pornographers billion dollar losses.

    44. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by qbast · · Score: 1

      So the "little princess" is on registry as well? If you were the same age, then it was mutual statutory rape after all.

    45. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "Though I am not sure why anyone would..."

      "There is always a choice."
      "You mean I could choose certain death?"
      "A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the other are based."
                      - Lord Vetinari and Moist - Diskworld

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    46. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by tverbeek · · Score: 1

      Actually, sex offender registries are for people convicted of any of a variety of sex-related offenses, not just those against minors. Forcible rape, prostitution (either party), public indecency, and possession of "obscene" material are other offenses that are routinely included in such registries.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    47. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      What if the toddler kissed him as he was putting him down? Not really that unusual for a child to do that; especially if that was the norm in the toddlers homes.

      In this case, therapy would have been far more beneficial to society.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    48. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Yeah, how many 4 year olds tell people that the neighbor kissed him on the lips? How many of them are completely making it up off the top of their heads?

      While you seem to think that's damning evidence, it isn't. 4 year olds don't live in the rational world. They are especially susceptible to manipulation, intentional or not. The prosecutor's own description of that event says the mother freaked out about the guy being a pedophile and then the next day the child "unprompted" said he had been kissed on the lips. That's textbook kid saying what the parent wants to hear.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    49. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by ectospasm · · Score: 1

      Trafficking in child pornography carries mandatory sentences in many jurisdictions. Simply posting, or even merely linking to that underage sex video can be enough to qualify.

      I believe this offender deserves what he got, without reading into it further.

      --


      We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of the dreams.
    50. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Asic+Eng · · Score: 1

      Pedo in my books...

      Shouldn't word have meaning though? Pedophile = someone who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children. There is nothing in that particular case of downloading which would indicate that he did it because he was sexually interested, and merely kissing a little child is in no way indicative of pedophilia. Sure pedophiles might do it for their own sexual gratification, but they would also talk to the child and hold his hand - it's not reasonable to infer anything from that.

      As for whether he should be on the register - you may well be right that from a legal point of view he could be placed on it, but isn't the intention there to warn people of a potential danger? If so, than only people who can reasonably be thought of as dangerous should be on it.

    51. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      Yes I agree that the title Pedophile *may* not be waranted, but in regards to be on the list as to be aware of a potential danger.. Would you want to live next door to this guy? I think it all boils down to, like I said above, he was convicted of child pornography... it shouldnt matter if he got a boner or not... he knew it was illegal (since his intent was to frame), he did it anyways, he got caught... "i downloaded child porn to be an asshole to my neighbour" is not valid excuse.

    52. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      okay, ill give you that.. like I posted in another reply, the Pedo moniker may not fit this particular case... but he broke the law by downloading, and uploading child pornography... therefor he is a sex offender in the eyes of the court.. the reason for commiting the crime doesnt change the fact that he commited the crime... I think its important to understand, its not illegal to have a sexual interest in children, however, it is illegal to act on those interests... however, that doesnt make downloading and uploading CP less of a crime if he isnt interested in children... he went looking for CP, he found CP, he uploaded CP.. the court doesnt care if he was aroused or not, fact is he commited a crime, and part of the punishment of that crime is being labelled an offender.

    53. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      Yes I will agree to that... he may not be a pedophile... but that doesnt make him not guilty of a sex crime, as described by the court... the reason he commited the act doesnt matter.. he knew it was illegal, he did it anyways (talking about the CP)... thats all it takes to get on the registry.. had he not been caught and succesfully framed his neighbour, and he neighbour was convicted of CP, then his neighbour would be on the registry... lucky for the neighbour it backfired and he landed himself on the registry... I dont feel bad for him for a second, imagine the thought (and im sure it happens) that the innocent neighbour got convicted and had a life long designation as a sex offender, possibly ruining his marriage, and losing all access to his child... he gets what he deserved

    54. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Matt Kostolnik then confronted Ardolf, who admitted he had kissed W.K. on the mouth.

      He admitted it. With no police involvement.

      If YOU were in that situation and you DIDN'T kiss the new neighbors' 4-year-old son on the mouth, wouldn't you deny it?

    55. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Moridineas · · Score: 1

      Matt Kostolnik then confronted Ardolf, who admitted he had kissed W.K. on the mouth.

      Is there anything else to say?

    56. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by liquiddark · · Score: 1

      He was an asshole of epic (not to mention criminal) proportions and his choice of tools ironically fits the punishment. I'm not sure I'd expect the judgement to stand up on appeal, but all the same it seems to fit his crimes. But nothing given indicates that he is a pedophile. That's the point I was responding to. I grew up in a small town, and we could count on our neighbours to be affectionate and careful around us, and while not everyone behaves that way in larger centres I'm not sure it's healthy to automatically assign pedophile status to anyone who does.

    57. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Cito · · Score: 1
      I kiss my 8 year old son on the lips

      and my neices and toddlers who are under 9 on the lips

      ive even kissed strangers kids ive babysat, they'll run up and give ya kiss on lips

      sheesh this world is getting stupidly over politically correct, want to label and hang something then lets string up the people who support political correctness and lynch them or drag them on the pavement behind our cars with rope.

      that's what idiot political correct tards deserve.

      this guy is not a pedophile, he downloaded files out of revenge on others not sexual gratification

      heck just open frostwire, search r@ygold, hussyfan, kingpass download and upload to someone's hacked email/facebook/myspace and wait doesn't mean you are a pedophile.

    58. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Atomic+Fro · · Score: 1

      I am seeing a lot of people wanting to hang this guy as a sex offender because he may have kissed this boy on the lips, and I just don't agree. Have you kissed your own child on the lips? If you have, would you then be a sex offender? No one said anything about the man giving the boy either a passionate kiss or that there was tongue involved, to which I too would cry "pedophile!" A peck on the lips may not have been appropriate for a stranger to do in today's society, but I don't believe this action should be punished with sex offender status any more than being a "close talker," or one of those people who give out hugs at every occasion. Though, sadly, they get sexual harassment charges brought against them all the time.

      --

      ==================
      Hippie Logger Jock
      ==================
    59. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      Yes i agree... its the downloading of CP that makes the kiss look really bad

    60. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Combatso · · Score: 1

      Yes I agree with you.. I live in a small town, and grew up in a small town... The kiss however, from a stranger is wierd... its not like they knew this guy at all.. ofcourse, i wasnt there, i dont know how it went down... part of me wonders why he had to bring the kid back, and the parents didnt get him... as a father of a young'n he doesnt get to wander freely, im right behind him.. and dont let him stray from my property unless im sure the neighbours dont care... again, i wasnt there, i dont know... all i know is the kiss was wierd enough for the parents to feel threatened and call the police... it doesnt change the fact that, this guy retaliated by commiting a sex crime... downloading and uploading CP, as far as I know, is a sex crime... and since its technically commited against a minor (the C in CP) it is classified as a dangerous offense... So I would expect it stand up to appeal.

    61. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by euroq · · Score: 1

      You have made an illogical argument, the way Glenn Beck makes conclusions, and people like you are the reason people burned witches hundreds of years ago (or now put people who haven't abused children on sex offender lists).

      When you go to many countries, the men wrap their arms around each other when walking down the street. Manly men kiss each other on the cheeks. And yes, sometimes they kiss a boy or girl on the lips. Hell, I kiss my boy dogs on the lips... does that make me guilty of gay pedo-bestiality?

      Now, don't get me wrong... he may be child predator and watch child pornography... I don't know. The point is, the evidence is not there. We only know he kissed a boy on the lips (weird, maybe, but not necessarily sexual), and a mere snippet of child pornography which was seemingly only used to fuck with someone else, not for sexual gratification (I would laugh if someone pointed to 3 porn pictures and called it a "porn collection").

      So when you say "by most accounts he IS a pedophile", you are just using your emotion to make judgement instead of reason, which can potentially ruin people's lives.

      --
      Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
    62. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by euroq · · Score: 1

      It provided the proof for the pedophilia that didn't exist when they started with the 2-year plea deal.

      Kissing a boy on the lips does not make one a pedophile. It means that he didn't want people using it in his sentencing. Considering that people's emotions would make them think he is a pedophile even if he isn't*, I think it's actually quite a rational course of action to try to get the court to not use it as evidence.

      * I dunno, he may be, I'm just saying that hiding the kiss from sentencing isn't evidence of him being a pedophile.

      --
      Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
    63. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      really? you would toss a life away for 18 years? The very idea turns my stomach. I mean ok a serial killer orsomeone who is habitual and violent and unlikely to be rehabilitated maybe.

      However 2 years is more than enough time to teach a lesson and see if he is rehabilitated

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    64. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Sulphur · · Score: 1

      Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.

      This is the "Confession is good for the soul" philosophy. Like in the Witch Trials.

      "And bad for the reputation." Dean Inge

    65. Re:Why the sex offenders registration? by Asic+Eng · · Score: 1

      Well, the guy sucks as a neighbor, he should definitely be punished. However they investigated him thoroughly, and he is clearly bad at covering his tracks - I think by now we can take it for granted that he is not actually a pedophile. (They would have found out, otherwise.) Also I think it's possible that he could be reformed or at least deterred. Whereas if someone has a sexual desire for children he can not really change that, just as I can't really change my sexual preference for women.

  12. WEP by david.given · · Score: 4, Informative

    This seems totally bogus to me. How could someone possibly crack WEP in two weeks? I suppose if you didn't read the instructions you might be able to stretch it to a few hours, but two weeks? What was he doing all that time?

    1. Re:WEP by crow_t_robot · · Score: 5, Funny

      What was he doing all that time?

      Reading the man pages for aircrack-ng?

    2. Re:WEP by Vegemeister · · Score: 1

      He probably wasn't using injection. He just listened until he had enough IVs.

    3. Re:WEP by Combatso · · Score: 1

      perhaps he only said 2 weeks,.. its possible he sat there for 2 weeks sniffing all their traffic and planning his little "attack". I wouldnt be suprised if they found personal photos of the family in this guys possesion..

    4. Re:WEP by phillips321 · · Score: 1
      Thankgod someone here understands the arty of wifi cracking.
      But from the looks of things this guy is a douchbag, if he is dumb enough to get caught i also guess he was dumb enough to use a replay attack in order to gather enough IVs. I guess he was also dump enough to connect to the network with his hardware MAC address rather than a cloned address from the target network. I guess his hostname was also something dumb like "BarrysLaptop".

      For those out there wishing to do this take precaution!
      • Use bootable usb stick for all hacking (and quickly swallow if feds show up)
      • When sniffing for WEP IVs or WPA handshake do so without inbjectng traffic
      • Change mac address to one that target network is already using
      • Change hostname to match targets machine
      • If using backtrack then ensure HTTP get requests match that of the targets machine: if target use Internet explorer and all your requests come from Firefox on a linux host it's pretty obvious is was spoofed.
      • ALL IN ALL DONT DO IT! If you have a problem with the neighbour just speak to him like a normal human being over a cold can of beer
    5. Re:WEP by Ksevio · · Score: 1

      Probably he didn't have compatible hardware for injecting packets so was forced to collect them passively. That's a process that can take a while (days depending on how often they used their wifi), but even then 2 weeks sounds a bit overkill.

    6. Re:WEP by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Wisdom, you haz it.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    7. Re:WEP by Jetrel · · Score: 1

      Downloading kiddie porn and crafting his plan to take over their world, what else?

      --
      If it isn't broke, tinker with it till it is!
    8. Re:WEP by jimnorcal · · Score: 1

      He's still using his TRS-80 so it takes a while.

  13. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Rashkae · · Score: 1

    Consider the Wifi network as "open" and use it only to connect VPN nodes (such as OpenVPN, for example.) This does require that you use a PC as the Internet gateway/NAT/VPN server.

  14. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by FlashBIOS · · Score: 1

    MAC address filtering is very loose security. MAC addresses arent private things, and aren't hidden when a computer is communicating. To build a list of MAC addresses that are allowed on the network (by simply seeing the machines that are on the network), and then change your machine's MAC to match is fairly trivial.

  15. So how do you monitor your home wifi? by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 1

    So how would you monitor your network to see if someone is brute forcing their way in? The options on a lot of these consumer grade wireless base stations are fairly limited, but there must be some reasonable way to monitor for brute force attacks.

    --
    Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
    1. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by rbrausse · · Score: 1

      most WLAN routers are used also as DHCP hosts. a simple solution would be a script that gets regularly the DHCP leases page and generates a warning when a new MAC/address combination is found.

    2. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      Well, the Airport Extreme I use logs all of its various activities, including connection attempts (successful or otherwise) as well as access to the disk that is hooked up to it and I view it on the device itself or export the logs for more thorough review. I'm sure it's far from the only consumer grade AP to do this.

      Now, I don't think it can go beyond simply letting me know that someone is trying to get in (beyond MAC filtering which is like trying to block a burglar by putting up a sign that says "do not rob this house if you are wearing red shoes") and having a strong WPA/WPA2 password, but if I was seeing large numbers of failed attempts on my AP I'd at least start doing some investigating.

    3. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by alta · · Score: 1

      Those are all great things, and I'd love to have one, but I can't imagine tell my parents to periodically check their syslog for intrusions or mac spoofing attempts :)

      Unfortunately, the ony way I can see securing wireless right now is to replace it with a wire.

      --
      Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
    4. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by ledow · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't trust your Wifi router to secure your internet connection, is the answer. WEP was built for wireless, and cracked. WPA was built for wireless, and cracked. Bluetooth was built for wireless, and cracked. It's only a matter of time before WPA2 and everything else goes the same way.

      Plug a *real* router in there somewhere so that such things can be monitored and logged and/or you can VPN over your own internal Wifi link so that even someone having complete access to your wireless isn't a problem at all. Then you don't even *need* wifi encryption turned on at all (but it's a good hindrance to any intruders) and you can play games like upside-down-ternet with people who try to get a free ride on your connection.

      That's the setup I had - just had a WPA network (WPA2 wasn't around at the time) and didn't trust WEP or (correctly, it seems now) WPA to secure my network. So I just made the wireless access point be an "untrusted" network, as it should be, on my main Linux router - which did the actual connection to the Internet and offering IP's etc.

      Whenever I connected to wifi in the home, I ran OpenVPN over the top (so the only traffic you could sniff would be my already-encrypted OpenVPN traffic) - which was transparent and automatic and simple and could use per-client keys. I surfed, and my guests minds were blown that even after I'd told them the WPA password and they'd joined the wireless network they couldn't "see" anything at all.

      This also lets you block EVERYTHING coming in via wifi to your laptop except for that OpenVPN port with a decent software firewall, which means you don't have to worry about something accessing filesharing ports, or tapping into whatever junk services your PC's are exposing to the whole wifi network (which, incidentally, can save a lot of bandwidth).

      You're seriously relying on a piece of £30 Taiwanese crap to secure your entire Internet connection being broadcast over a radio sphere that could be kilometres wide if you have the right reception equipment? Nope. Treat it like an unsecured Internet connection - tunnel into a known-good server which has a wired connection to the Internet.

    5. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      Yes, like I said it's entirely passive, and requires you to go above and beyond to actually notice anything amiss - eg, either exporting and using a script to look at the logs or doing it by eye, or simply to check it from time to time on the thing itself.

      It would be nice if you could tell it to warn you if there were an unusual number of access attempts, or an emailed warning about any (or a few) failed attempts from the same MAC address, for example.

    6. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by adamchou · · Score: 1

      AFAIK, you can't monitor this with any consumer or commercial grade system. The beauty of WiFi is that every packet transmitted is broadcasted. So you just find the network you want to crack and then capture packets to crack. What you're actually brute forcing are the packets you captured, not the access point itself so once you've successfully cracked the authentication, the crackers login to the access point will appear to be a normal login.

    7. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by alta · · Score: 1

      since you're using apple products, imagine if we take it a little farther on the notifications... Once a hack attempt is made, your airport starts injecting 'hacking attempt' audio into your music streams.

      Your iTV puts a ticker at the bottom of the screen... iphone/powermac have warning popups

      --
      Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
    8. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      There isn't since this brute force attack is completely passive. All he had to do was to listen in until he had received enough IVs from the other families computers.

    9. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by Fahrvergnuugen · · Score: 1

      I also have an Airport Extreme. How do we script it?

      --
      Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
    10. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by jo_ham · · Score: 1

      I mean externally - the AE supports SNMP, so you can query it remotely for stuff like that, or use an Applescript to fire up the config app and dump the log that way, or have a machine on the other end of that "syslog destination address" where the AE will send all of its log entries as they occur.

    11. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by slaad · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the ony way I can see securing wireless right now is to replace it with a wire.

      Use WPA2 with a strong password and you're pretty much bulletproof. There are no known shortcuts to cracking it and it's extremely slow. Even cracking a minimum length (8 char) random password is pretty much infeasible for a single computer.

      The strong password is the key point. If you use a regular word or something easy like a couple of words or a word followed by a number then it becomes easy to crack fairly quickly. But if you choose something longer ( 20 or 30 chars....you can go up to 64) and at least partially random then there's no way anyone without serious resources are going to crack it.

      --


      ~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
    12. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by slaad · · Score: 1

      Er, I should have said a max of 63 chars.

      --


      ~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
    13. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by yacc143 · · Score: 1

      Which catches again only the noobs.

      If the attacker matches an existing MAC address, there will be nothing suspicious going on. And if he uses a random MAC without DHCP nothing will show either.

      For WEP there is not much you can do, especially if it's a neighbor that wants your skin => there are ways to crack WEP completely passively. OTOH, by injecting carefully designed packets, the time to crack a WEP key goes down into seconds. (Cynically, it's so fast that WEP key cracking could be included in consumer devices and the consumer would not notice the delay).

    14. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by ledow · · Score: 1

      Not unless you consider abritrary small packet injection (including ARP packet-sizes) within 18 minutes of monitoring a network, and/or decrypting all the traffic towards the client in TKIP PSK mode, etc. to be an expected feature of a security measure.

      I'm not saying it's as open as WEP, but it's no longer secure in a number of configurations and you can't make a "WPA-only" device any more - and call it WiFi - because of it. Weak user-supplied keys are neither here nor there and apply to anything that can be accessed.

    15. Re:So how do you monitor your home wifi? by ledow · · Score: 1

      http://dl.aircrack-ng.org/breakingwepandwpa.pdf

      And, bear in mind, that paper is from 2008. It's also linked to from several major security lists from around the same time. Though it can have countermeasures deployed against it, that attack is 3 years old and thus not state-of-the-art - things have moved on.

      Now how much longer do you think WPA is going to last, and how long have you been trusting ARP packets that are sent over WPA?

  16. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

    I shut it off anyway. If you don't have a wire, you don't connect to my network.

  17. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by dltaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most NICs support either intentional or "back-door" MAC address cloning. Cloud-computing resources can crack your WEP (trivial), WPA (harder/slower), and WPA2 (much harder and slower, but still doable, unless you rotate them daily).

    Then, if you have implemented some reasonable level of security, when the jackboots kick in your door, you'll have a much harder time defending yourself during the pre-trial investigation, and, then, assuming you live long enough, in court, due to the security you put into place, obviously trying to hide your evil actions.

    At best, you can discourage casual (mis-)use of your WiFi, but that wouldn't help against a long-term attack like this one.

    If you're worried about it, shut it off, and run the cable, as I have.

  18. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by grumling · · Score: 1

    http://www.random.org/passwords/ has a fairly good pw generator. Make a bunch and pick 2 strung together.

    --
    "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
  19. MAC address spoofing by Phoenix666 · · Score: 1

    It must have taken them a long time to figure out what happened unless he wasn't spoofing MAC addresses. It wouldn't occur to most people that their wifi was hacked. Most would assume someone had hacked their individual machines. Wonder if the target was technical, in which case the hacker would have been stupid to do what he did (not to mention evil).

    --
    Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
    1. Re:MAC address spoofing by Tangential · · Score: 1

      It could have been MAC addresses or it could have been something as simple as the time that a hack occurred. The homeowners may have been able to prove that they were not home at that time and couldn't have done it.

      Based on the 2 weeks to hack WEP, this guy wasn't too bright. It may never have occurred to him to make sure that they were home whenever he did something.

      --
      Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
    2. Re:MAC address spoofing by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      When they didn't found any references to the material on any of the families computers they probably asked them if they knew if there was someone they had a grudge with and the pointed to their neighbor.

  20. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by grumling · · Score: 1

    Or it could be the author of the article has his head up his ass and just calls all wireless security WEP.

    --
    "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
  21. The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that prosecutors are allowed to offer plea deals.

    If the prosecutor believes crimes were committed, then file charges. If not, don't.

    If people are cowed into pleaing guilty (or no contest) to charges to which they believe they're innocent due to legal costs or fears of false conviction, the solution is radical reform of the legal system. NOT to create a gray area of semi-crime, semi-guilt, and semi-punishement. That is *not* innocence until proven guilty.

    1. Re:The REAL WTF... by HBI · · Score: 1

      Absent plea deals, the entire system would break down due to lack of enforcement. Just how many trials can the state run? How many courtrooms are really available for said trials? Logistics...

      That said, the prosecutorial fiat involved in plea deals is quite scary. Particularly on the receiving end. I just can't think of a good way around it.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    2. Re:The REAL WTF... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      There is already a huge backlog of cases and trying a case is a huge cost to society. Without plea agreements it could take decades for some of these cases to come to trial.

    3. Re:The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

      Absent plea deals, the entire system would break down due to lack of enforcement. Just how many trials can the state run? How many courtrooms are really available for said trials? Logistics...

      That should not be the accused's problem to solve. However, one might consider these options:

      • Only enact laws which most people agree with (i.e., higher speed limits)
      • Hire more judges
    4. Re:The REAL WTF... by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2

      This looks to me like a case where the prosecutor felt that a two year sentnece was a sufficiently harsh sentence to be worth letting the guy skate on the rest of the criminal violations. When the guy refused that, the prosecutor said, "Well, if we have to go through a trial anyway, we might as well go for everything." There is some legitimacy to that in this case, although it is often scary how prosecutors use the threat of massive prosecution to secure plea deals for what are really very minor offenses where there is significant question as to the suspect's guilt. On the other side (and just as bad of a use of plea deals), are cases where people who have committed rather heinous crimes are allowed to plea down to something minor (this might actually be a case where such a deal was offered and rejected).

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    5. Re:The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      The government had other options available in your case.

      Given your circumstances, the prosecutor could have chosen to dismiss the case. Or the judge could have possibly updated your record with a mere warning or traditional ticket, and acquitted you of the criminal charges.

      But I shouls also note that your situation is a little different. You weren't offered a plea when you were in fact innocent. You were offered a plea when you were certainly guilty (but with extenuating circumstances).

      That being said, you still paid a fixed fee to avoid the risk of a certain judgment from the court. Basically you were buying your way out of the risk of a capricious legal systems. I don't believe you should have had to make that calculation.

    6. Re:The REAL WTF... by ScentCone · · Score: 1
      Sometimes the people without enough money to spend are the taxpayers that fund the cops, the prosecutors, the courts, and the prison/parole system. Most municipal, county, and state governments are effectively bankrupt right now. Plea deals shorten this whole process and save a bunch of taxpayer dollars. Simple as that. If the plea deal results in something that the prosecutor and/or aggrieved parties can still tolerate, then sure - spare the taxpayers from having to go further into debt to deal with a given sociopath.

      the solution is radical reform of the legal system

      Nah, it's radical reform of the ways in which many cities, states, and counties spend their money that's needed to make the cost component of these plea deals go away.

      --
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    7. Re:The REAL WTF... by madhatter256 · · Score: 1

      Plea Deals speed up due process...

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    8. Re:The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      Plea Deals speed up due process...

      At the cost of someone being innoctent until proven guilty. In my opinion that's a terrible trade-off.

    9. Re:The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      It seems what we then is a prosecutor who decided a man's potential level of punishment, based (presumably) on whether or not the man was going to force the prosecution to undergo the cost and inconvenience of a trial. I.e., the full extent of punishment being sought was not based on the crime, but on the prosecutor feeling inconvenienced.

      Although reasonable people can disagree about what would be just in some situations, I think we should all be in agreeement on this matter.

    10. Re:The REAL WTF... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      How is it injustice? The person still gets punished and other people's cases come to trial more quickly. Would it be better to have people sit in jail for years waiting for their trial to come up? Maybe you should check your 6th amendment and see why settling cases out of court is a good thing.

    11. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      That's the point. The government shouldn't be passing laws it can't reasonably enforce.

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    12. Re:The REAL WTF... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      Good luck on clearly defining victimless crimes and minor inconveniences.

    13. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Prosecutors have a lot of leeway in what they can charge. If there are mitigating circumstances, they should choose the lesser charge whether the person admits to the claim or not. There should be NO quid pro quo in the justice system.

      Turn your idea around. Do you think it's appropriate for a prosecutor to levy harsher charges than he thinks is actually justified, just because someone wants a trial? That's exactly what you are promoting here.

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    14. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Plea deals shorten this whole process and save a bunch of taxpayer dollars. Simple as that.

      So your answer is "it's too expensive to provide people with fair trials, so we won't". And you think that's OK? If the state can't provide everyone it arrests with a fair trial, the only just solution is to arrest fewer people.

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    15. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Plea deals nullify due process. As long as you are punished for exercising your right to a trial, there is no due process at all.

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    16. Re:The REAL WTF... by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      And you think that's OK?

      The state is only making an offer. If someone knows they're guilty and that they're going to get creamed in court, they also have an incentive to take the plea deal. If they want that trial, all they have to do is not accept the plea offer. You do understand that part, right?

      --
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    17. Re:The REAL WTF... by Millennium · · Score: 1

      The choke point isn't so much the number of judges as it is the number of courtrooms. You'd have to build and fully staff more of these, so that more trials could run at the same time, which incurs not only staff and construction costs but also land costs.

      Eventually the number of judges would indeed become the limiting factor, and then you'd have to hire more of them. But right now, that's not the biggest problem.

    18. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      If they want that trial, all they have to do is not accept the plea offer. You do understand that part, right?

      Sure. Do you understand the part where if they make that choice and lose they end up with a greater punishment than otherwise? Do you think the government should be in the business of discouraging people from exercising their constitutional rights?

      Do you see how innocent people can make the same calculation as guilty people? If they don't have faith in the legal system to acquit them(which is only sensible), how they would be tempted to cop to a crime they didn't commit? Are you OK with that?

      I suspect you do see all that, and simply don't care.

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    19. Re:The REAL WTF... by bkaul01 · · Score: 1

      And what of the situation where the prosecutor is sure a person committed a crime, but isn't confident he has a strong enough case to prove it in court? If he offers a plea deal and the perpetrator confesses and pleads guilty, it may not lead to the maximum sentence, but at least it gets the criminal off the streets for a while.

    20. Re:The REAL WTF... by Azghoul · · Score: 1

      Maybe we should make a little less shit illegal. Then you don't have to arrest quite so many.

      Start with drug legalization.

    21. Re:The REAL WTF... by ScentCone · · Score: 1
      No, I see that you're changing what it is that you're complaining about. Before you were complaining about the government not being able to afford to give a fair trial. I pointed out that just because they're offering a shorter solution doesn't mean anyone has to take them up on it, Now you're complaining that trials aren't fair in the first place. Well, which is it?

      They don't get a longer sentence if they actually go through a trial. They get the sentence they get. What happens is they get a shorter sentence (or some other consideration) if they opt to save the taxpayers a ton of time and money and precious resources by agreeing to a plea. It's not exactly mysterious or nefarious. It's a compromise by the government aimed at freeing up their resources to do other things.

      how they would be tempted to cop to a crime they didn't commit?

      Why are you putting words in my mouth? Who said anything about copping to a crime they didn't commit? This is about copping to less than the crime they've committed, in a compromise that spares their fellow citizens a lot of time and cost.

      --
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    22. Re:The REAL WTF... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      Sure, but consider a few downsides.

      First of all, any admission of guilt at that point is compelled and therefore less credible. (An exception would be if the witness then provided evidence to his crime, i.e., showed where a body was burried.) So while it might validate the prosecutor's intuition, it very well might not get at the truth of the matter.

      But just as importantly, it's substituting the prosecutor's judgment for that of a judge and/or jury. If a prosecutor can't make a case to the people who are supposed to ultimately decide these issues, then something is suspicious.

      Finally, consider the motivations of prosecutors themselves. They're often judged (and elected) based on conviction rates and/or obtaining a conviction, any conviction, in cases about which that the public is angry. By threatening to hit a possibly innocent person with a trial that is potentially financially ruinous, drawn out, and could yield a false conviction, a prosecutor can use plea agreements to secure convitions for his own political aspirations, regardless of the guilt or innocense of the accused.

    23. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      No, I see that you're changing what it is that you're complaining about. Before you were complaining about the government not being able to afford to give a fair trial.

      No, the GP was using cost as an excuse to avoid giving fair trials. I was merely pointing out that plea bargaining precludes fair trials.

      They don't get a longer sentence if they actually go through a trial. They get the sentence they get. What happens is they get a shorter sentence

      This is the exact same thing and you know it. Don't be disingenuous.

      Why are you putting words in my mouth? Who said anything about copping to a crime they didn't commit?

      Because innocent people copping to crimes they didn't commit is a completely foreseeable and unavoidable consequence of plea bargaining.

      This is about copping to less than the crime they've committed

      Which would be fine if plea bargains were only ever offered to people who committed crimes. You are approaching this entire subject with a presumption of guilt.

      Try exercising some empathy and put your self in the shoes of an innocent indigent who has been falsely accused. You're going to assume the state has it out for you no matter what, since that's what you've learned through experience. If the state gives you two options, you're going to pick the lower sentence because you don't believe you're going to get a fair trial.

      It really takes a lot of faith in the system to choose a jury trial. Faith that is not justified.

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    24. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      If he's not guilty, then a trial should acquit him.

      It should, but often times it doesn't. That's a big risk to take, and many innocent people don't feel it's going to work out in their favor.

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    25. Re:The REAL WTF... by qbast · · Score: 1

      Plea bargains is pretty often used when prosecutor does not think case can be won, so he will use threats to get smaller win by default.

    26. Re:The REAL WTF... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      irrelevant. Easy of use is not reason to circumvent someones due process. Plea deals have become a hammer where even the innocent have become afraid to not accept.

      Plea deals exists so prosecutors don't have to do their job. They do not benefit society.
      Maybe tio lighten their load they will only go after crimes where these is enough proof to show they are guilty?

      --
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    27. Re:The REAL WTF... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      no it wouldn't and it's and absurd assumption.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    28. Re:The REAL WTF... by qbast · · Score: 1

      Let's say you are accused of murder and prosecutor gives you option of 10 years plea bargain or trial and maybe death penalty. You are innocent, but also you are black, creepy looking, have previous arrest for assault (you were released next day) and cannot prove where exactly you have been during time of the murder. Would you reject deal out of hand?

    29. Re:The REAL WTF... by bkaul01 · · Score: 1

      Oh, I don't deny that the process is often abused; I just don't think it's desirable (or even possible) to eliminate it entirely because of that. Reform the practice and put reasonable restrictions on its use, sure, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are valid uses of plea bargains to go along with those easily-conceived abuses.

    30. Re:The REAL WTF... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Ecsept they sue them in such a way that even when they dont' ahve evidence soneone uis guilty the erson will take a plea anyway; regardless if the committed the crime.

      "I'm innocent."
      "Maybe, but if the jury happens to decide other wise, you are going to jail for 20 years and labels a sex offense,. but if you plea, it's just two years."

      It's easy to say you wouldn't take it, OTOH, when you are in an unfamiliar situation, made to feel powerless, it might seem like a good idea.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    31. Re:The REAL WTF... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      If they were truly innocent they wouldn't take the plea. This guy was clearly not innocent.

    32. Re:The REAL WTF... by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

      I can only assume you live in some small town where only 3 trials come up a year. I assure you that if you ask anybody in a major city what the backlog would be like if there were no plea agreements they would tell you it would be huge. Right now, in NYC, there is about a 2 year wait for trial. Take a look at the Caylee Anthony murder case. She was found in December 2008 and the trial just ended a few weeks ago.

      It's estimated that 90% of convictions are from plea agreements. So take that 2 years and multiply it by 10. What do you get? Decades.

    33. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      That is a ridiculously naive statement. The fact is innocent people take plea bargains all the time. People will choose the devil they know (the plea bargain) over the devil they don't know (risking a trial) even if they are innocent.

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    34. Re:The REAL WTF... by HBI · · Score: 1

      Your sentiment is similar to others', so don't think i'm picking on you in particular.

      You sound like an anarchist. I assume you know that the ultimate result of such a policy would be a sharp decline in highway tickets and quality of life crime enforcement. The reason why will be that it won't be profitable to pursue such things, and only things that the government can not avoid public pressure on will even be prosecuted. This will make the legal system even more capricious than now, with kangaroo show trials being the only thing that governments will by and large pursue.

      Consider the follow-on effects of such a scenario. Unintended (or intended?) consequences will ensue, and significant societal breakdown is not out of the question.

      --
      HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    35. Re:The REAL WTF... by Bellegante · · Score: 1

      You don't understand, and most people don't.

      In Texas, 99.5% of all cases are resolved by plea bargain. Its all for the same reason, and innocence or guilt doesn't factor in: The prosecutor will offer a deal that you'd be a fool to reject unless you were certain you could win your trial.

      If you happen to be poor, and in the right area, the court might be one that appoints public defenders without any fuss (that isn't a good assumption to make, though) or maybe you've got lucky and the area you are in has an actual public defenders office, in which each attorney is assigned a mere 200 cases at a time.

      Its easy to say he was stupid for not taking the plea bargain, but innocent people take these plea bargains too, for the same reasons - felony record and probation or 5 years in prison? Sure you can win? Want to take the gamble?

      Not my site, but one of a few that really covers this subject: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/

    36. Re:The REAL WTF... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      If by "the same" you mean "the opposite,"

      It's symmetrical. From one arbitrarily chosen default position it's a reward. From the other arbitrarily chosen default position it's a punishment. Same thing.

      As a further example, consider subsidies and fines. A subsidy for growing corn is the same as a fine for not growing corn. A fine for parking in a handicapped spot is the same as a subsidy for not parking in a handicapped spot.

      Either way you look at it, there is an incentive being provided. What incentive are you offering innocent people when you offer them a plea bargain?

      A trial is the normal procedure that results in the normal sentence. A plea baragain is the exception, and may lighten the punishment as an incentive to proceed quickly and in a less troublesome way.

      Except that 95% of cases are plea bargained. Plea bargaining is the normal procedure now, and getting a trial is the exception.

      No, I only happen to be talking about guilty people, as in the case from TFA being discussed. You're the one who imagines otherwise.

      If you're talking about plea bargains as a public policy you have to consider their affects on the falsely accused. Since the only way to legally determine guilt from innocence is a trial, and plea bargains preclude a trial you can't selectively offer plea bargains to only the guilty. Nor would you want to if you could.

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    37. Re:The REAL WTF... by jwhitener · · Score: 1

      But on the flip side, having prosecutors with discretionary power means that even when a crime is committed, depending on circumstances, the prosecutor can decide to not press charges.

      Situations like a 17 year old being with an 18 year old. Technically it's a crime in some places, but a moral prosecutor should never file charges in that situation. There is also limited time. A prosecutor has to manage their time well, and that usually means trying to make deals to save court time.

      I'd much rather have some flexibility in the system of law (right from the beginning before charges are even pressed) than a rigid system that wouldn't take into account the situation as a whole.

      Like any position of power, it always boils down having a good person holding the power. It is pretty difficult to make the rules so detailed and rigid that any method of abuse becomes impossible.

  22. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by TheCRAIGGERS · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, Mac filtering is pretty useless. I mean, what's the chances of a leet hacker using a Mac?

    Steven Seagal's Apple Newton notwithstanding.

  23. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by mistralol · · Score: 1

    Why? It does not actually matter if the mac address is in use or not.

  24. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    1. spoofing an IP will not get you past MAC address filtering

    So you just spoof your MAC address as well. It's not as if this was rocket science (... as anybody would know who ever sat in a boring airport lounge..)

  25. I've got it! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    The obvious solution is to not piss off the creepy neighbor.

    And if some stranger I just met kissed my kid on the lips I'd be doing a little hacking of my own, involving a Extra Heavy Duty Glad Bag and a large surgical skiving knife.

    See, the trick is to cut the bags open so you can cover the furniture. It makes cleanup a snap.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:I've got it! by jank1887 · · Score: 1

      PROTIP: when you unexpectedly walk into a room with every surface covered in plastic...

    2. Re:I've got it! by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      You missed the fact that the hacker was the kisser, not the father of the child (not really a big deal, so did I on a first read through of the summary).

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    3. Re:I've got it! by liquiddark · · Score: 1

      Congratulations, by way of that rant you just BECAME the creepy neighbour. Holy fuck, psychos abound today.

    4. Re:I've got it! by geekoid · · Score: 1

      No. there was a kiss. To call him the kisser implies he instigated it as oppose to the child just giving him a friendly kiss. Something children do.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:I've got it! by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      OK, I will grant you that. The important point is that the poster I replied to thought the guy who refused the plea deal (and who hacked into his neighbor's network) was the father of the child, when in fact it was not.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    6. Re:I've got it! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      You missed the fact that the hacker was the kisser

      No, I caught that. Why would you think my statement indicates I did not understand that the creepy-kisser guy was the hacker?

      That's why I used the term "do a little hacking of my own..."

      You'll get this reading thing down yet, Attila.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  26. Plea Deal by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 1

    He went from a 2-year plea bargain to an 18-year sentence? They raked him over the coals for not cooperating with the prosecution.

    --
    I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
    1. Re:Plea Deal by RazzleFrog · · Score: 2, Informative

      He basically screwed around with the whole court system. Making a withdrawing pleas, coaching his family on what to say and notes they should write to the judge, making outrageous counter-claims, etc. Once he abandoned the plea they went after him for everything he had done. The 18 years is fair based on everything I read in that PDF.

    2. Re:Plea Deal by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Yes, raking people over the coals for not cooperating with the prosecution is standard procedure in many departments. The question is, is that OK? Is it really common sense to make sure the falsely accused know that their best chance is to take a deal? Is that the kind of justice system we want? Where it's better for 100 innocent men to cop to a deal than for one prosecutor to be inconvenienced?

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  27. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by at_slashdot · · Score: 1

    WPA2 is probably adequate, MAC address filtering would probably stop only very incompetent hackers, it's pretty useless in my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong)

    --
    "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
  28. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

    if you read TFsentencingmemo, there's no doubt he did.

  29. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by rhook · · Score: 1

    If you use WPA2 and a strong WPA password that is 18+ characters long you don't have much to worry about. MAC filtering is easy to bypass and WEP is a joke.

  30. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by RazzleFrog · · Score: 1

    If you read that whole pdf you would see that the evidence against him is overwhelming. He'd be better off claiming he had an evil twin.

  31. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by definate · · Score: 1

    Tell that to the Norfolk Four, watch the PBS documentary.

    While I'm not suggesting that's what happened here, I am saying that a confession isn't necessarily definitive evidence that anyone has done what they confessed too. The methods used to solicit the confession, the motivations of those involved, and the persons mental capacity (either at the time, or in general), need to be taken into account.

    Hopefully they have substantially more evidence than just a confession. Especially if this person is "creepy", weird, or similar, as he might be the kind of person who would fall prey to this sort of coercion.

    Just something to keep in mind when they say "he confessed".

    --
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  32. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Doodlesmcpooh · · Score: 1

    Although it can have security issues itself HomePlug is a good option. I live in an old granite 3 storey house so I can't get a decent wireless signal throughout my house so HomePlug works great for me. I doubt many hackers check to see if they can access homeplug in their neighbours house via the electrical sockets in their own house.

  33. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by cduffy · · Score: 1

    And that would have protected against what happened here how?

    The neighbor would have been able to use him as a source address for traffic -- but *not* to steal his usernames and passwords out of the air.

  34. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by beezly · · Score: 1

    MAC address filtering is useless against a determined attacker. Your best bet is a WPA2 PSK with a long key, unless you fancy setting up WPA2 Enterprise.

  35. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by rhook · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of WPA and WPA2 cracking services online, pretty much just a click away. These services rely on their "rainbow tables" for WPA/WPA2, which if you use a non-standard SSID and a long (18+ character), strong password are pretty much useless. Once the WPA password passes about 14 characters the table generation time starts running into years.

  36. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You mean besides the confession (already mentioned by another reply to you), and besides the fact that when he was emailing his victim's coworkers and bosses with message claiming to be a pedophile he accidentally left some of his ISP's software running, so his laptop was sending login information to Comcast using his own name and Comcast account number? Besides the search warrant that turned up a journal where he detailed his plan to "utterly destroy his life"? Besides the manuals on hacking WEP where he had scribbled his victim's wifi network name? Besides the fact that on his computer was the child pornography he planted on his victim? Along with a note in his journal "PLANT CHILD PORN". Besides the pile of stolen mail under his bed? Besides the unsent letter he had prepared where he had printed off his victim's last tax return, and attached a note that their life belongs to him, and he will end it? Yeah, basically sounds like a setup, could have been anybody!

    --
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  37. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by rhook · · Score: 1

    Not broadcasting the SSID is a pretty worthless security measure. If you have a wireless client connected I can see your SSID.

  38. a bit over the top... by IT.luddite · · Score: 1

    but seriously, who hasn't enjoyed some Gedankenexperiment and run through all the neat little things one could do to really make someone's life a living hell? The fail here was the evidence trail he left :)

    1. Re:a bit over the top... by PPH · · Score: 1

      Ah yes. Hatfield-McCoy v2.0.

      Life is too short to waste time on such white trash feuds. Not only that, but such thinking tends to pollute ones whole psyche. I've seen people who have gone down that path decades ago and it leaves them seriously f*cked up for the rest of their lives (and their kids as well).

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  39. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

    You appear to have missed the fact that the person who said 'I decided to "get even" by launching computer attacks against him,' is the guy who kissed the other guy's son, not the guy who reported it to the police (which by the way, I did as well on the first read through of the summary).

    --
    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  40. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Riceballsan · · Score: 1

    The only passwords I'm seeing that this guy stole in TFA was the WEP key. Apart from that it looks like he just used the persons connection to create new accounts to frame him for anything and everything he could get away with.

  41. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by buddyglass · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering + "something better than WEP" (e.g. WPA2) + don't broadcast your network's SSID. Of course that makes it sort of annoying when you have guests over to your house who want to connect to your network.

  42. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by cduffy · · Score: 1

    Hmm -- I didn't catch that it was new accounts. Depending on how his corporate email system was secured, it may or may not have been necessary to steal username/password credentials to send messages appearing to be from the intended target.

  43. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by 1s44c · · Score: 1

    1. spoofing an IP will not get you past MAC address filtering

    So you just spoof your MAC address as well. It's not as if this was rocket science (... as anybody would know who ever sat in a boring airport lounge..)

    You don't have to spoof your IP address at all. Just spoof the MAC address and let DHCP take care of the IP address.

  44. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by gatkinso · · Score: 2

    True, but make them go through the effort.

    It is one more step, which when revealed in court, will help hang them.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  45. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

    Indeed, in most cases this works... unless the DHCP server is smart enough to know that the re-request came way too early (the Mac still has a lease, and it's still valid several hours...)

  46. Re:How times have changed by scharkalvin · · Score: 1

    Guess your dad was a made man with low friends in high places.

  47. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Fireshadow · · Score: 1

    Working with what you got, here's off the top of my head: -Adjust the transmit power setting. Unless you need wireless coverage outside your residence, then I would turn down the power to where the signal is just barely getting outside your walls. For example, can you stand outside your apartment door and see your wireless network? If so, others can. AFAIK, only the custom firmwares support adjusting the power aka tomato and DD-WRT. Look at them if you haven't. -MAC address filtering + WPA 2 is good. Others will point out the MAC addresses can be spoofed. WEP is pathetic at the time of this writing. -Turn off support for unneeded services and protocols on your router. For example, if there's no 802.11b network cards, turn this off.

    --
    "It's one thing to talk about the poetry of machines. Quite another to listen to it for yourself."
  48. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by shoehornjob · · Score: 1

    Every device that has access to the internet in my house is listed in the mac address filter on the router. I use a wpa-tkip-aes key as well as stateful packet inspection. The reality of it is any asshole (like the one mentioned above) who is motivated enough will eventually break my security key. I just do the best I can to make it a pain in the ass to all that are not truly motivated. As a parent I would have had something to say about a stranger kissing my child but to call the police and report him as a sex offender without even checking the listing is irresponsible. At the very least she should have checked her states' website that lists sex offenders before she made an accusation.

    --
    "We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
  49. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    WPA2 is probably adequate, MAC address filtering would probably stop only very incompetent hackers, it's pretty useless in my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong)

    You may be right about that. Can you find the MAC addresses of systems connected to a network you are passively sniffing? Then it is a matter of waiting for that system to go offline (such as the case for a laptop or phone), then steal its MAC. In this case the hard part is getting past the WPA2.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  50. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by SmilingBoy · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering + "something better than WEP" (e.g. WPA2) + don't broadcast your network's SSID. Of course that makes it sort of annoying when you have guests over to your house who want to connect to your network.

    So you think that MAC filtering and a non-broadcast SSID are going to stop someone that can break WPA2? Seriously, just use WPA2 and be done with it.

  51. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering is, in my opinion, a pain in the ass for little gain. Every time you want to add a new device you gotta add the device's MAC to your filter list.Yes it's usually trivial to do, but it's a pain when family or friends come to visit. If it added a significant amount of security I'd consider it worth the annoyance, but it's trivial for anyone who even vaguely knows what they're doing to bypass. I use WPA2 with a long non-trivial password. If someone gets past that I think I can legally argue that did due diligence in keeping my network safe.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  52. good for them.... by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    In a serious type of criminal activity of this nature, trying to falsely incriminate the other person technically means YOU were the one obtaining the child p0rn, so YOU should face those charges you are trying to bring unto them....glad the courts saw this and acted accordingly....

    If he really has no time other then to get back at someone...then he faces the consequences of getting caught....and that is what he got,
    i feel no pity for him, and if what he did was true(kissing the little boy on the lips, when he did not even know the boy), means to me he definitely is a weirdo...
    and belongs where he is...

  53. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Physical security like control your Wireless signal. place the AP in a location where it does not spill outside. I.E. actually understand RF energy and how to control it.

    I have an Open AP that unless you are in the house or up against my glass you are NOT getting in. and no you posers claiming you can do it with a cantenna cant. I have a 27db gain 2 foot dish and I cant get into it until I am 4 feet from the house. There are advantages to having aluminum siding and aluminum window screens plus the AP residing in the basement on the floor.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  54. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

    Unless his corporate network was pathetically set up (a possibility, I'll grant you), even with access to the guy's wireless network corporate network should have been safe without a lot more effort. Ideally connections to work should have been VPNed, but at the very least they should have been HTTPS, or an encrypted e-mail protocol.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  55. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Trails · · Score: 1

    Aye, but passwords are transmitted in the clear.

    I like this one:

    http://www.thebitmill.com/tools/password.html

    Can set length, include different sets of character classes (helpful sometimes to turn off punctuation for the idiotic apps/sites that block punctuation in passwords)

  56. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by shoehornjob · · Score: 1

    Well, if he was an uber skilled script kiddie, he could just spoof one of the allowed IP's which isn't hard to do at all considering 'script-kiddies' have been hacking into government affiliates as of late... :) got something to hide?

    Does anyone know if stateful packet inspection will catch ip or mac spoofing?

    --
    "We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
  57. High security makes defense hard by bradley13 · · Score: 1

    There was another case of Wifi hacking a while back - the victim of the hacking was able to get the charges dismissed largely because they were running an unsecured WiFi. The implication was clear: if they had secured their WiFi, they probably would have been convicted. The authorities probably not have accepted their claim to have been hacked.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
  58. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by CapuchinSeven · · Score: 1

    I don't know if I should mark you as stupid or smart/funny... STOP CONFUSING ME...

  59. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by opk · · Score: 1

    It does. If it's in use at the same time as the hacker connects with the MAC spoofed, you have two machines on the network with the same MAC. That causes enough problems that the victim will notice something is going on.

  60. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by d3ac0n · · Score: 1

    Heh, my previous house was just like that. I called it my "Faraday home". It was nice knowing that nobody could get into my Wifi network because they simply couldn't reach it. I didn't run security on mine either. Although not being able to get online with my laptop while sitting in my back yard was, admittedly, annoying.

    My new place is not so lucky, so I have to keep the Wifi power turned down quite a bit and use WPA2 security with a stupidly long and complex key. But I wasn't as bad as my neighbors, almost none of which had security turned on at all, or used the broadcast name as the security key. At least until I went in and changed all the names of the base stations to rude phrases, then they all got locked down in a weekend. :)

    --
    Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
  61. Personal Responsibility by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    I agree that the mother over reacted by calling the police. Marching up to the guy and giving a major scolding is more likely effective.

    Oh, come on, now, you're being completely unreasonable. We're trying to build a society here where one can completely abdicate personal responsibility and avoid personal confrontations at all costs.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  62. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

    So typing in a "long non-trivial password" every time a guest or new device needs to be added to the network is less of a "pain" than adding MAC filtering which, according to you, is "trivial to do, but it's a pain"?

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  63. don't piss off technical support :) by doperative · · Score: 1

    "perceived sleights turned into byzantine obsession is a sign of a person who will do nothing but bring grief to anyone who ever touches his or her life"

    Have you never see the Cable Guy or One Hour Photo. I guess the lesson to be learned here is don't piss off technical support .. :)

    "Up until his termination in June of 2010, Ardolf worked at Medtronic as a neuromodulation device repair technician" link

  64. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1


    Cloud-computing resources can crack your WEP (trivial), WPA (harder/slower), and WPA2 (much harder and slower, but still doable, unless you rotate them daily).

    Baloney. If you pick a long password (say 15 upper/lower/numbers), "cloud computing" can't break a WPA2 AES password. If you know otherwise, please post a reference of how you can possibly accomplish this.

  65. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by CapuchinSeven · · Score: 1

    If someone can hack WPA2 then MAC filtering isn't going to do jack, the ultimate answer here is to use WPA2 (if you must use wifi).

  66. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by chill · · Score: 1

    WPA2-PSK-AES with a 64-character passphrase that looks like line noise. Save it to a text file stored on a USB key, so you can just move around to various devices and cut-n-paste it in to set them up. Change it if you ever give it to a guest -- once they leave, or sooner if you want to *prod* them to leave.

    Change your SSID to something like "invite_only" or "private_keep_out". This is more for legal support than any actual physical defence.

    Turn on and periodically check the logs on your WAP. Become familiar with what normal entries look like and keep an eye out for anomalies. Specifically, look for any duplicate MAC alerts, which is a sign someone is trying to spoof one of your MAC addresses.

    Noob tricks like MAC filtering, DHCP client limits, etc. are trivially bypassed by a knowledgeable attacker. Please note, anyone with a few minutes access to Google is now a knowledgeable attacker.

    Make sure all your devices support WPA2-PSK-AES. Any that don't, upgrade or replace.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  67. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Hatta · · Score: 1

    WPA2 (much harder and slower, but still doable, unless you rotate them daily).

    If it's so slow, why would you change they keys daily? If your key has sufficient entropy, you are set for years.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  68. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

    And that would have protected against what happened here how?

    The neighbor would have been able to use him as a source address for traffic -- but *not* to steal his usernames and passwords out of the air.

    If one were to go to the trouble of using an internal VPN rather than standard wireless encryption, it would really make sense to go the one extra step and ensure that only traffic from the VPN tun device on the endpoint gets routed to the internet...

    That would leave anybody who gets onto the wireless harmlessly twiddling their thumbs in some 192.186.1.* backwater until they figured out what VPN client to fire up and somehow obtained the credentials for it.

  69. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by MagusSlurpy · · Score: 1

    I don't know if I should mark you as stupid or smart/funny... STOP CONFUSING ME...

    They've finally added the "-1, Stupid" mod?

    --
    My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
  70. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by 1s44c · · Score: 1

    Indeed, in most cases this works... unless the DHCP server is smart enough to know that the re-request came way too early (the Mac still has a lease, and it's still valid several hours...)

    What DHCP server behaves in that way? It sounds likely to go wrong.

  71. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by mistralol · · Score: 1

    Then I suggest you try it. Spoof a mac from a machine which is on another machine and make sure one of the machines is allocated a different ip address. You will be surprised by the events when they unfold. It may not work with wpa / wpa2 (never tried) but it will work with wep (tried). Both machine will just see each other's ip traffic and drop them at the ip stack. The following can also work. It is possible to shadow a wireless user using wep / the same mac and the same ip address. So long as both machines have a stateless firewall which drops everything by default. It will prevent the hosts from interfering with each other :)

  72. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by TheTrueScotsman · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter how trivial it is since MAC filtering adds no security at all and is a waste of time. A "long non-trivial password" is the only security measure you can take (or need to take) with WPA2.

  73. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by bberens · · Score: 1

    I know what happens when you have a duplicate MAC on a wired network... confuses the routing. Is there a similar collision on a broadcast/wifi system? If so, even if he spoofs a MAC he has to wait until yours is offline, otherwise it's just a DOS. In my house all the networked devices are on 24/7 except my cell phone which obviously travels with me.

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  74. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by errxn · · Score: 1

    You catch someone doing something like this, and you put them under arrest yourself and then hope they resist, at which point you may use necessary force to subdue them. In California, anyway. Bring a witness with a camera.

    Almost. You beat his ass first and then figure out how to blame it on him. In Texas, anyway. Bring a shotgun.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
  75. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by bberens · · Score: 1

    It's surprising how many companies have open relays.

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  76. Re:the good old days by tverbeek · · Score: 1

    I used to connect to open wifis in my neighborhood, login to the routers using the default admin passwords, block google.com, then change the router's hostname or something to "secureyourwifi". They're all using encryption (of some kind) now.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  77. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by bberens · · Score: 1

    I understand the risks, but I personally find this level of security a pita for a home network. I use WPA2 and my password is non-trivial but still probably dictionary-able (words with character substitutions such as a $ for an s in the word...) Anyways, I do this specifically because I got tired of everybody and their brother with an iphone wanting to get on my network and having to add their MAC and provide them with a card with the complex key written on it. I realize that some people run businesses at their homes so it makes sense in that case to be a little extra paranoid, but I think many people around here are overly paranoid. I don't mean that part to be specifically about you, I'm sure many people have good reasons to want their home networks secure. In my case, I treat it like locking the door... it's just enough to keep the honest people out.

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
  78. Modding is getting difficult by aepervius · · Score: 1

    I hesitate between damn funny, dripping sarcasm, and informative.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  79. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by werewolf1031 · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering is only a pain if you routinely have company. For someone who only occasionally has guests, it's not a problem - and when I do, it takes all of 2 minutes to get them set up on my network. What I do...

    1. Disable DHCP, assign each device on my network its own static IP address.
    2. Enable MAC address filtering for each device.
    3. Enable WPA2+PSK, using a long, seemingly random string of letters and numbers that only I know the proper means to mentally 'generate' on the fly (as opposed to having to memorize the whole damned thing).

    Granted none of these are impenetrable, but put 'em together and I feel reasonably secure, especially against your average script kiddie.

    (Now let's watch as some random "wardriver" drives past my apartment and proves me wrong. -.- )

  80. 3 Felonies a Day by geoffrobinson · · Score: 1

    There was a book written called "3 Felonies a Day" which details how the legal code is so complex, everyone is a felon. What you are describing is a symptom of that.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  81. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by crakbone · · Score: 1

    I don't know about Homeplug specifically. But most network over powerline inhome systems network signals will not go through the transformer on the pole. He would have to have access to power after the pole.

  82. wep by Murdoch5 · · Score: 1

    This is why you don't use wep!!!! Anyone stupid enough to enable wep is just as at fault as the hacker.

  83. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm glad someone called him out on it. The only practical WPA2 attacks are dictionary attacks. Don't pick passphrases that include dictionary words.

  84. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by PNutts · · Score: 1

    I have an Open AP that unless you are in the house or up against my glass you are NOT getting in. and no you posers claiming you can do it with a cantenna cant. I have a 27db gain 2 foot dish and I cant get into it until I am 4 feet from the house. There are advantages to having aluminum siding and aluminum window screens plus the AP residing in the basement on the floor.

    Do not underestimate the power of 60 years of lead based paints.

  85. Re:Devil's advocate by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    read the summary AGAIN... he did NOT kiss his own son, he kissed the Kostolnik's son...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  86. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by buddyglass · · Score: 1

    Good point. Though, I think in general MAC filtering and non-broadcast SSID will deter many amateurs. I mean, look at the guy in this article. It took him 2 weeks to crack WEP. If they had not been broadcasting the SSID, are we certain he'd have even figured out they have a network? Neither of those methods (MAC filtering and non-broadcast SSID) are going to defeat someone who knows what he's doing. The corollary is that many people don't know what they're doing.

  87. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by Born2bwire · · Score: 3, Funny

    You read the article! No fair!

  88. Re:It's pukes like that ... by lordSaurontheGreat · · Score: 1

    You know, there comes a point when your faith in Eugenics is so complete that you're still a believer in it even though it means that you'd probably have to render yourself infertile.

    --
    Consider yourself spoken to.
  89. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Erm, I don't know what you mean by 'smart enough'. If a computer rerequests a IP, DHCP is supposed to respond to it and give them their IP.

    Anyone trying to 'secure' something by making a DHCP server not do that until that IP's lease 'expired' would pretty much break everything. 'Oh, look, that dastardly computer crashed without turning in their lease, no IP for them when they reboot! And that one went to sleep mode and, upon waking, checked to make sure it still on the network by updating its leash, no IP for them either!'

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  90. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by snookerhog · · Score: 1

    wish I could give you points for the QUALITY Newton reference. made my morning.

  91. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

    having dupe mac addresses causes ARP cache conflicks.

    arp -an (to view)
    arp -d (to delete the entry)

    until the entry is gone or aged out, the router who has that arp cache will send packets for that mac addr out the 'port' its 'attached' to (in cache).

    all made worse by multiple bridges having forwarding databases (your switches are really bridges, just wire speed) having mac_addr to port tables and this can point in 'all different directions' for data flow.

    the thing is, users are so used to wifi being 'messed up' or having hangs and pauses, they won't NOTICE a mac addr poisoning, necessarily. heck, they'll just reboot something until the data flows again.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  92. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

    It's not much less of a pain, but unlike MAC filtering it's actually reasonably secure. I don't mind something being an annoyance if it works, but it seems stupid to add yet more effort on top of the existing effort while adding no real value. Besides with a bit of effort a password (really a passphrase) can be long and non-trivial, but still be memorable. I can type my WPA key from memory, I don't make a habit of memorizing MAC addresses.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  93. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Yes, because you can keep the password on a flash drive, and when guests come over, you can hand it to them and they can get online with almost no delay added. It's a copy and paste.

    Meanwhile, if you filter MAC addresses, you have to have another computer already on the network handy, and log into the admin pages and add them.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  94. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by dougmc · · Score: 1

    The guy took two weeks to crack WEP? He must have been doing something wrong then.

    ... or, maybe he initially knew nothing of wireless hacking, and had to spend 13 days learning about it and downloading stuff ... and the actual hack took five minutes.

    Really, this is what people are harping on?

  95. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

    Texas?

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  96. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Disabling DHCP does nothing for your security at all. Anyone who break WPA2-PSK is going to have enough skill to be able to set their own fricking IP in your network.

    And the same with MAC filtering, although that might actually help if every single device in your house is on. (Or, rather, every single device that is often on, is on. Obviously, they can't guess the MACs of devices that are never on in the first place.) Generally, no, that's equally pointless.

    There are sometimes reasons to have multiple levels of security, but they have to go from least to most to make any sense at discouraging and stopping people. To break into your network, people have to first break WPA2, and at that point, anyone who manages that can certainly figure out the rest of the thing. (Not that I think anyone could manage that.)

    You have put a dollar store padlock on a box that you're storing inside a safe. All you've done is make it more work for you.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  97. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by dave420 · · Score: 1

    I miss the 1990s.

  98. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering would have done, quite literally, nothing to stop this guy, and I will explain why.

    To crack WEP, you generally fire up a scanner like kismet to locate your target. This will locate any SSID where there is either a broadcast, or traffic. This is why non-broadcast isnt much security-- its possible that the scanner will miss your network, but given enough time it will eventually respond to a packet and show up in the scanner.

    Once you have located your network, you check its details, which shows authenticated MACs, encryption type, etc. At this point, you start collecting IVs through aircrack or whatever else you use. One of the ways to generate traffic is to spoof de-auth packets to auth'd laptops, forcing them to reauthenticate, generating additional traffic. This whole way through, you have a list of valid MAC addresses-- so when you finally crack the password, you can simply spoof your mac as one of theirs (Wifi macs are easily changed in software), issue a deauth command to their connection, and authenticate as them. If it is at night, they probably wouldnt even notice, and their router would show you as being them.

    If you want additional security, you use an encryption type that wasnt broken in 2001, horribly broken in 2004, and left in shambles a few years later as the cracks got progressively better. It is now possible to crack a WEP network on bog-standard Ubuntu with unpatched drivers with bog standard hardware in about 5 minutes (the span of 2 youtube videos) if you have the right software.

    In other words, use WPA or WPA2-- preferably with AES. The vulnerabilities for those consist of pounding the routers in a brute force attempt to get the password. For a password, use a sentence-- it can be anything, like "My dog's name is Rover.". Good luck to the would-be hacker guessing which of the billions of permutations of sentences you used.

  99. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Spykk · · Score: 1

    Have we learned nothing from Independence Day?

  100. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    All nodes can change their mac. Under windows it can be done from device manager, under linux I think iwconfig and macchanger can do it.

  101. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by tapspace · · Score: 2

    WEP / WPA? I wouldn't lump those two together. WEP is garbage. These people were running WEP. WEP should be unincluded for all modern routers (you should have to go out of your way to get a special purpose WEP router if you really need it). That's an ideal world. So, what can you do? Use WPA2-AES with a 40 character passphrase if you're paranoid. Problem solved (for all practical purposes).

  102. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

    That would not prevent someone authenticating to your wifi AP and doing what this guy did, namely take incriminating actions from your connection.

  103. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 1

    That is what outdoor outlets are for. I know there are a couple on my house. They also do have loops to put a padlock over the covers of the outlets, but who locks up their outlets?

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  104. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by heypete · · Score: 2

    Why not use WPA2-AES, rather than WPA-TKIP/AES? The latter has only the minimum strength of WPA-TKIP (which isn't terribly strong).

    No sense in exposing your network needlessly.

  105. Re:are the police extra sure he did it? by PingSpike · · Score: 1

    Now for a truly terrifying experience, imagine what would have happened if he wasn't grossly incompetent.

  106. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 1

    So do you change your long passphrase every time someone comes over who wants to use your Wifi and you have to provide the password, or do you go through the hassle of actually typing it in on their machine yourself, and then making sure it is not saved and such? Or do you just pull the dick move and tell everyone that comes over with a laptop that they can't use your WiFi?

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  107. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by v1 · · Score: 1

    MAC filtering is 99% worthless. It takes one command in terminal to change your ethernet or wifi MAC to anything want, good till reboot.

    And afaik MAC addresses are sent in the clear so a packet sniffer would instantly have a valid usable MAC when someone logged in legitimately. Just a matter of waiting for them to put their computer to sleep, as more than one computer with the same MAC tends to make the router go skitzo.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  108. This man is evil; score one for the good guys by sirwired · · Score: 2

    This man is truly a depraved and evil person. Not only did he try to frame his current neighbors, he harassed and stole from his previous neighbors. When the Feds attempted to go easy on him, he fired the lawyer that scored this sweetheart deal and withdrew his plea. He then proceeded to blatantly violate the terms of his release from prison. Well after the trial had begun, he pled guilty a second time. Because this wasn't nearly enough fun, he tried to withdraw his plea AGAIN (that failed.) He also added attempted witness tampering to his list of crimes, because apparently he wasn't going to be locked away for enough time yet. (But he did it via mail sent from prison! I guess he didn't get the memo that except for mail to your lawyer, all letters to/from prison can be read. Whoops!)

    He shows absolutely no remorse for his actions; to this day thinking this "revenge" was justified. (He even tried to get the victim's testimony disqualified because they failed to obtain a construction permit for work done on their basement and therefore they could not be trusted. Talk about the (cast iron) pot calling the stainless-steel kettle black.)

    Was he TRYING to dig his hole as deep as possible? About the only thing that could have made him worse off would have been a pro se defense, followed by trying to attack the judge during the trial.

    Locking guys like this away is what we have a justice system for. Good riddance.

    1. Re:This man is evil; score one for the good guys by snowgirl · · Score: 1

      This actually sounds par for the course for one guy I knew. We had a restraining order against him, and what does he do? Breaks into our place and steals my briefcase full of evidence. Oh, as well, in the halls outside the courtroom, I pulled out a piece of evidence to remind him that he's screwed, to which he grabs it out of my hands and rips it up right there.

      Psychopaths have no sense of consequence or regret. The former tends to get them in the most trouble, because they just do whatever comes to mind, and not "damned be the consequences" they never even considered the consequences.

      Some psychopaths can get away with a lot if they're not, you know, murdering people (and even then they tend to get away with it for years) and the system is generally designed to go easy on people and assume good faith. So, even when they get caught, they tend to get out of it the first few times. But the real problem is that they will never let go, and never stop doing stuff to hurt themselves in the long run. They're far too used to being able to lie their way out of anything.

      If this guy really is psychopathic, then honestly, we already know that there is no way to really cure him. He's permanently brain damaged. Therapy doesn't help either, because that just teaches them how to hide better. There isn't a government system in the world that really knows how to deal with psychopaths properly, and fairly. (Hell, just getting accurate diagnoses can be hard enough.)

      --
      WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
  109. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Rashkae · · Score: 1

    No, he would not have been able to use the victim's internet as source address. The internet gateway/NAT should not forward to/from Interent anythign that is not on the VPN 'network'.

  110. Devil's Advocacy Here... by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    And if some stranger I just met kissed my kid on the lips

    That was the original complaint from the neighbor. If we take this on its own, and presume nothing before or after, I think it warrants a little more examination of what happened. We are, after all, talking about a small child. Sure, based on what we know about this nutjob it is certainly possible he intended to plant a kiss on the lips of a kid, in which case he is a dirty pedophile who should be taken out of society.

    On the other hand, we should consider the behavior of a lot of typical 4 year old kids - rather unpredictable. If your neighbor kissed your kid on the cheek or forehead you might not be offended, right? What if that is what the guy was going for and the kid moved his own head at the last second? Now the stranger's lips are on the kid's lips unintentionally.

    Of course, I would generally think it unwise to kiss a kid you have never met before. and based on what he did afterwards the guy is psychotic and should be put away.

    But there is a chance, particularly given how little information we have, that the first encounter was innocent in intent, and ended up blown out of proportion. There is, of course, an equal chance that it was just as bad as it looked.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Devil's Advocacy Here... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      If your neighbor kissed your kid on the cheek or forehead you might not be offended, right?

      If you're a stranger and your lips are close enough to my kid's lips that the child squirming would "accidentally" cause you to soul kiss my child, then yes, I'm offended.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  111. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Anzya · · Score: 1

    oh, if we're adding more mods, how about a "-1 typing while intoxicated"? :)

    --
    "This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
  112. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Admiral_Grinder · · Score: 1

    Boy I believe this. My signal gets knocked down to below 50% just by moving downstairs and over one room.

    On top of that I can hardly watch broadcast TV from towers that are less than 10 miles from my home. I get the station, but the UPS truck driving by causes it to go out.

  113. Does he remind anyone of Hans Reiser? by sirwired · · Score: 1

    This guy reminds me a lot of Hans Reiser. Absolutely no remorse, and obsessed with how "fairly" he was being treated and wanting everyone to know how mean his victims were, vs. at least pretending he was sorry and getting out of prison prior to collecting Medicare.

    1. Re:Does he remind anyone of Hans Reiser? by damburger · · Score: 2

      Sounds like Asperger's Syndrome gone bad. With AS a person can either recognize that their are massively unsuited to interacted with the human race, and seek to correct their own behaviour, or they can start seeing the human race as a threat and turn into a dangerous, paranoid loon.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    2. Re:Does he remind anyone of Hans Reiser? by shibashaba · · Score: 2

      You are so wrong its not funny. People with aspergers do not need to correct their behavior and more or less than anyone else.

      There have been lots of studies and there is no more of a risk of someone with aspergers becoming alienated and dangerous than anyone else with a socioeconomic or mental disability. Which happens to comprise a huge portion of the world.

      --
      ---------- Open Source is capitalism applied to IP.
  114. Re:Devil's advocate by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

    read the summary AGAIN... he did NOT kiss his own son, he kissed the Kostolnik's son...

    Yep, but other than that, there was nothing mentioned to support the idea he was a pedophile. The article said he had two kids of his own and despite having his computers raided there was no mention of kiddie porn other than the frame-job pic.

    In the current culture of fear, reporting him as a pedophile is tantamount to convicting him. At the very least it substantially raised the risk that child protective services would take his kids away from him, never mind all the other social stigma issues. Lots of parents will go batshit crazy when you threaten their kids like that.

    On the other hand, he apparently was a repeat offender. Having done something similar, on a smaller scale, to a neighbor at a previous residence because he was pissed that their physical therapists (often?) blocked his driveway. At least that's what the article I read said, it may have over-simplified for purposes of sensationalism since it didn't sound like he had actually been convicted of anything before.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  115. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by mistralol · · Score: 1

    Sorry but you misunderstand this concept about wireless. It send it out its port "aerial" which is then broadcast to "all" clients. So both machines can see this. The clients on the lan can only see a single mac for all nodes on an access point. Which is the mac of an access point connected to the wan. This is how a bridge works. The same attack works on a hub. But nothing in this situation is actually being "switched" while you are spoofing the mac ....

  116. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by laurelraven · · Score: 1

    That wouldn't be a problem on wireless like it is on wire...on the wire, the switch switches packets based on MAC addresses, so it would not be able to reliably switch traffic to the correct host. Wireless just shoots the traffic out more like a hub...the wireless card picks it up, seeing that it is destined for its MAC address, then the network stack discards it seeing that it doesn't match the interface's IP address. While this might cause a slight performance issue, I doubt it would be noticeable.

    --
    RTFA is Known to the State of California to cause cancer.
  117. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

    I'm not that paranoid. I just give them the passphrase. I rotate it every 6 months or so so to prevent it being guessed by an outsider, but I don't assume that everybody who comes to my house is trying to steal mah wirelsses.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  118. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 1

    Do any wireless routers have the option to set a more permanent passphrase for longtime use, and also provide a short term temporary password for guests? That would be ideal.

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  119. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Asic+Eng · · Score: 1

    If it is at night, they probably wouldn't even notice

    So the MAC filtering would either make the hacking noticeable (interfering with legit users traffic) or force the attacker to wait. That's not much, but it's inconvenient for the attacker and it costs close to nothing to implement. So why not turn it on?

  120. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Asic+Eng · · Score: 1

    you have to have another computer already on the network handy

    That's a fair point, but for some of us not having a computer on the network would be a rather unusual event.

  121. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by SCHecklerX · · Score: 1

    Use openvpn, and lock down access to only those on the vpn network. If you don't mind spending $200, you can get a 3 port netgate loaded with pfsense. Put your wireless AP on the third interface.

    http://store.netgate.com/Desktop-Systems-C83.aspx

  122. Re:News of the World by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Actually, people are going to jail for that, and business dealing have halted, and a lot of investigation is still underway.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  123. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Arcady13 · · Score: 1

    Newer models of the Apple AirPort Extreme have an option for a guest login, with reduced access, etc.

  124. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 1

    Cool. But what if I don't want to shell out $180 for a router? Anybody know if this feature exists on cheaper non-Apple routers?

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  125. Sex offender legal only because of future danger by davidwr · · Score: 1

    When the Supreme Court upheld sex-offender registration laws it was because of the presumed high recidivism (a presumption which has not stood the test of time, I might add).

    If you have someone you KNOW is not likely to commit a new sex-related crime you are cluttering up the list and arguably violating the constitution.

    Now, if there were a list for amorally dangerous felons, then this guy might qualify for civil commitment, assuming he still has his "I can do anything I want to anyone I want" attitude in 18 years when his time is up.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  126. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

    I run an open wifi network in addition to my private net (forced through transparent proxy that limits what kinds of sites you can get to, and speed limited to 25kbyte/s)... I named the SSID "I promise you won't get any viruses, wink wink". Strangely, nobody has even attempted to log into it. :)

    Most people who "hack" a wifi connection are just looking for a free Internet hookup. Give them access to e-mail and web, maybe IM, but make it too slow and too limited for them to do anything illegal, and they usually won't bother trying to go after your private network unless they have a reason to go after you. So name your private network something that has nothing to do with you, and could not be guessed as yours (open a dictionary to a random page and pick the longest word on the page), and you're pretty much safe. Still use WPA2, but you don't need a stupidly long passkey to protect it, just one that's long enough to make it not worth hacking (which is why you provide an open network for them to go after instead).

    In other words, get your network security through social engineering. If you're going at it from a lock-everything-down perspective you'll be stuck in an endless cycle of upgrades, and you will ultimately lose. You still need to keep your tech current, but the need is nowhere near as pressing when you take a few steps to make your network unattractive to a potential hacker.

  127. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

    But most network over powerline inhome systems network signals will not go through the transformer on the pole. He would have to have access to power after the pole.

    Most homes share a transformer with a few of their neighbors. There are 46 homes on my street, but only 4 transformers (if I'm interpreting the aerial photo in Google Maps correctly). Odds are fairly good that you and your next-door neighbors are on the same transformer.

    --
    20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  128. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Bengie · · Score: 1

    "WPA2 (much harder and slower...)"

    Unlike data being measured in Libraries of Congress, WPA2-PSK cracking is measured in universe ages. I would definitely say "slower"

  129. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Pyramid · · Score: 1

    I hate to break it to you, but you misunderstand the difference between layer 2 vs. 3, bridging vs. routing and how ARP works.

    In your scenario where LAN clients only see the MAC of the Access Point, the AP is acting a a Router (Layer 3). A bridge works at layer 2, all MACs are passed unchanged. A bridge is nothing more than a two port switch (or hub, depending on how/if it manages unicast/broadcast/multicast). This has nothing to do with the nature of wireless.

    Even if the AP is acting as a router as most home APs do, having identical MAC addresses on the wirless side will still mess with ARP and cause all kinds of weird connectivity issues. Even in the best case where you've spoofed your target's MAC address *and* IP address, there will be no way to differentiate which packets from each machine go where. In an unswitched network, you'll get massive collision errors and TCP will be quite upset with incomplete conversations flying around and in a switched environment, the switch's MAC table will be FUBARed.

    --
    ~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
  130. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    Dont need lead based paint. go and buy " magnetic paint" it has a TON of iron in it so that magents will stick to kids walls. well 3 coats of this and painting in a copper strip to ground = a significant attenuation of RF. so much that a cellphone will NOT work in my daughters room.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  131. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

    Also neighbors with unsecured WiFi acting as lightning rods would help.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  132. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by dasherjan · · Score: 1

    I'm starting to think that a home auth server for wireless connections is a must. Hmm...I have been looking for a reason to learn Diameter. :)

  133. Not a troll by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    In California you may execute a citizen's arrest if you witness a misdemeanor or have reason to believe someone has committed a felony. Don't fuck up, though. Cops don't like competition.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  134. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by dasherjan · · Score: 1

    It doesn't hurt to turn it on. Think of it as closing the screen door to keep the insects out. I think the reason why people say "leave it off" is because there some out there that would put MAC filtering in place and think they are completely secure. So they so to leave it off to avoid confusion.

  135. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Issarlk · · Score: 1

    Except if the gateway PC only lets through traffic comming via the VPN, which it probably would be setup to do.

  136. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    "What additional security measures can be taken to thwart script kiddies like this guy?"

    Don't call the police and accuse people of being pedophiles unless they actually are pedophiles !

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  137. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by frozentier · · Score: 1

    If it's so slow, why would you change they keys daily? If your key has sufficient entropy, you are set for years.

    Because apparently, judging from the responses I've seen, there are some people on here who are unbelievably paranoid.

  138. You might have a case to get off by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Actually, you might not but someone who is on the list for a crime committed before the SO registry came into being might.

    The Supreme Court upheld ex-post-facto sex-offender registry on the grounds that it was protective, not punitive.

    Anyone who can demonstrate that his placement on the SO list is both ex-post-facto and not protective has a good case.

    It's largely moot as most people who have only "old" crimes were able to take advantage of ways to get off the list that used to be in place before the Adam Walsh act, or their crimes did not require lifetime registration and the registration has since expired.

    However, a guy who is just now getting out of prison on a 15+ year rape conviction AND who is demonstrably not a risk to anyone (e.g. physically incapacitated or many years of proven pro-social attitude) has a good shot at a court-ordered removal from the list once his parole is up.

    As for those who committed their crimes after the law was changed: For them, the registration can be considered "part of their punishment" from a constitutional perspective, making their current danger-level irrelevant.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  139. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    Yes, but they're often in another room or turned off or whatever.

    It takes less time for a cracker to fake their way past than it takes to add a legitimate user to the network.

    That is not a reasonable security measure.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  140. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Soporific · · Score: 1

    If he's like me, then because his older devices don't support it.

    ~S

  141. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by chill · · Score: 1

    I refuse to run an open wifi network. I prefer to encourage the use of proper encryption.

    If you want to run a publicly available wifi network, just use WPA2-PSK and put the short key in the SSID. For example, an SSID of "free_wifi_password_is_SECRET2".

    Unlike WEP, which uses the PSK for everything, WPA just uses it for associating. Connection keys are generated and rotated frequently during actual data transmission.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  142. Re:why did the kiss trigger this? by mrnick · · Score: 1

    He wasn't kissing his kid he was kissing the neighbors kid (on the lips) on the very first day they moved in... come on, nobody can think that is OK!

    --

    Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
  143. Speaking of sentences by presidenteloco · · Score: 1

    It seems that, according to the justice system, the errant hacker would have been better to have acted on his revenge anger immediately,
    rushing over and killing the accusing father in a pique of rage.

    Then he would have received 10 years for manslaughter instead of 18 years for various cybercrime offenses.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  144. Re:When you kiss your child by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

    When you kiss your child are you sexually exploiting them?

    The missus here over-reacted quite a bit by saying "We've moved next to a paedophile".

    Granted, the neighbor over-reacted hugely.

    But this isn't paedophilia. Because not everyone who kisses a child means to have sex with them.

    Maybe some places there are different definitions of "acceptable," but I imagine anywhere in the US that a social difference between a stranger kissing kissing a child on the lips is crossing the line. If it was the fore-head or the hand or something I "guess" you could argue some sort of culture clash... on the lips is pushingit. Either the parents saw it in which case the guy's in trouble, or the kid makes an off-hand comment about it in which case the parents wonder what ELSE was going on.

    But even if you're on the fence about the kiss for culture reasons or whatever, combining the kiss and the photos starts putting you on the sex offender radar. Maybe you're not a flat-out pedo, but you've crossed a line. Meanwhile, the crazy s**t this guy was doing was beyond the pale so they probably wanted to throw whatever charge they could at him.

    I will admit, I think in some places the sex offender registry is a bit over-used. Technically some places can ding you for public urination or something, and then you're pretty much a pariah for life.

  145. Re:Unfathomable psychic damage! by camg188 · · Score: 1

    Psychic damage... lol.
    Maybe he used some sort of telepathy. Hacked their brains and their router.

    You'd think that attorneys representing the government would know the difference between psychic and psychological.

  146. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by berashith · · Score: 1

    bah , just wrap your house in aluminum

  147. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    Where do you live?

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  148. What Do You Expect When You Publicly Accuse... by littlewink · · Score: 1, Interesting
    someone of being a pedophile? It's possibly the worst possible thing you could do to someone these days short of killing their children in front of them.

    He's obviously passive-aggressive and has serious problems but the mom was out of line to make the critical "pedophile" allegation to police based upon the single isolated incident. She inadvertently set in motion what Steven Pinker calls a "doomsday machine" mechanism in the brain of the accused, whereupon he tossed caution to the winds and became hell-bent upon destroying his neighbors.

    This "amok" behavior is a common behavior found in all societies where a man feels he has lost status, has no power and seeks revenge for his mistreatment.

    I think the mother got what she deserved and the convicted got worse than he deserved. But neither party is innocent here.

    1. Re:What Do You Expect When You Publicly Accuse... by jafiwam · · Score: 1

      You missed the part about Adolf picking up a child he had just met, and kissing it on the lips without consent didn't you. Sorry, that's not normal behavior in the United States. Sexual contact with a child under 10 is a goddamn serious crime here. "Pedophile" exactly describes this guy's behavior. Go back to whatever third world shithole you are from before you get arrested yourself, moron.

    2. Re:What Do You Expect When You Publicly Accuse... by littlewink · · Score: 1
      jafiwam says: "... picking up a child he had just met, and kissing it on the lips..."

      No. Here's the relevant portion from the PDF file:

      ..When she reached the doorway, Bethany picked up J.K., and started inside. With her back to Ardolf, Bethany heard him plant a wet kiss on W.F. She wheeled around, grabbed W.K. from Ardolfâ(TM)s arms and pulled her child inside the house. After shutting the front door, she ran upstairs and cried, saying âoeweâ(TM)ve just moved next door to a pedophile.â...

      • So the mother did not claim to see the kiss. She said she heard a kiss. Was there a kiss? If so, was it on the lips? Who knows. The mother presumed there was a kiss on the lips. She also presumed the neighbor was a pedophile. There was no valid eyewitness.
      • I might remind you that it is not uncommon for someone to kiss a child (even Presidents do it).
      • And maybe the "kiss", if on the lips, was accidentally on the lips (not intended to hit the lips, but a typical affectionate kiss intended for the cheek) but the child turned, changing the orientation of the child, causing lips to meet. Maybe the child offered the kiss, which children will often do, and the neighbor was responding in a normal manner..
      • The fellow was not found guilty of "kissing a child" but of possessing child porn. Don't confuse the two. The mother went to the law with her accusation based on what she presumed to be true. Who knows what really happened.

      As you can see you have no idea of what actually happened, little imagination, little idea of legal process and are much more a moron than I. For example, apparently you think I am a bad person to suggest that the "kissing" accusation was false, yet any lawyer indeed, any prosecutor, would question it immediately.

  149. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

    Doesn't seem anybody's posted anything useful, so here goes... 1. Hide your SSID (this in itself requires crazy measures to get around, far beyond a script kiddie) --makes your network not user friendly 2. Use WPA2 encryption, don't have it? Time to upgrade --the difference is night and day in cracking speeds, but now with gpu cracking... 3. as stated filter MAC --really not user friendly, I don't use this 4. Disable legacy frequencies (B/G networks) --never know, good practice at the least. That's all I can think of for now, the above just about everyone can do, there's things like setting up Snort that are harder or a fake AP. Easiest simplest advice I can give though is watch the network light on your router, is it going too much when your not online? Turn off ALL your wireless / wired devices, is it still firing like mad? That's not you using it then, simple. Call a tech savvy friend before the cops.

  150. Bullhunky Court Documents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Note that while I think that the court documents of the prosecution read like a really badly written TV soap, I am in no way supporting this "hacker" (not a term I would even think of attributing to him).

    In the court document (second link in this post), there is crap like:

    Details of the Offense

    A. Ardolf Kisses the Kostolniks’ Four-Year-Old Son Shortly
    after the Kostolniks Move to the Neighborhood

    Matt and Bethany Kostolnik moved into their dream home in
    August 2008. Located on a cul-de-sac in Blaine, the home provided
    room for their growing family; they had two children under five
    years old, and were expecting another child soon. On August 2,
    2008, one day after moving into their new home, the dream became a
    nightmare. The Kostolniks’ four-year-old son, W.K., wandered into
    a neighbor’s yard to climb on an inviting play-set. A pregnant
    Bethany saw W.K. in the neighbor’s yard and, while standing in the
    driveway of her home, called for him to come back while
    simultaneously trying to keep her 18-month-old son, J.K., from
    walking out the open doorway of their home. Finally, Bethany
    chased after W.K.
    .

    Its not a statement of facts, its a horror story told in the voice of Morgan Freeman at the beginning of a B movie.
    Sham(e)

  151. Re:Devil's advocate by shoemilk · · Score: 1

    d'oh. redacted

  152. Ardolf is loosing his house and shafting his kids. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The U.S. Attorney gave Mr. Ardolf a choice. Sell your house and put the proceeds in a trust for your three children or we will use the Civil Forfeiture law to take the house and the proceeds will go to the U.S. Treasury. The goal is to remove him from the neighborhood. It appears that Mr. Ardolf has chosen to forfeit the house and shaft his three children. So sad...

  153. Re:why did the kiss trigger this? by treeves · · Score: 1

    The neighbor kissed the child on the lips, not the parent(s). I don't know that that automatically warrants a police investigation, but it turns out that he was a sick individual, so it was right in this case.

    --
    ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
  154. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by cffrost · · Score: 1

    [...] stupidly long and complex key.

    Stupidly long and complex keys are the only keys that aren't stupid.

    --
    Thank you, Edward Snowden.

    "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
  155. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

    i don't think anything can crack a nice password with wpa2+aes. not in a reasonable amount of time, anyway. it'd take years!

    --
    Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  156. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by PReDiToR · · Score: 1

    Are you talking about me?

    --

    Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
  157. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by PReDiToR · · Score: 1

    1. Hide your SSID (this in itself requires crazy measures to get around, far beyond a script kiddie)

    Utterly wrong.
    Most skiddies will be using Linux (backtrack) with Aircrack-ng. Unknown SSIDs show their MACs up immediately. You don't need the network name to crack WiFi, just the MAC.

    --

    Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
  158. Re:FYI by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    No state allows citizen's arrest for misdemeanors or the "belief" of a felony.

    I like how I'm logged in, and you're anonymous. It makes me happy. Peace and love!

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  159. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by jp10558 · · Score: 1

    The problem with this entire answer is it's basically:
    Hire an enterprise network admin or become a wifi hobbyist.
    Neither is ever going to happen for the vast majority of users.

    --
    Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
  160. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by Subratik · · Score: 1

    1. spoofing an IP will not get you past MAC address filtering

    You don't have to spoof your IP address at all. Just spoof the MAC address and let DHCP take care of the IP address.

    This, sorry, that is what I originally meant.. thanks for correcting me

  161. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by chill · · Score: 1

    Then forget the logging part and just do the SSID and password bits. Those only have to be done on setup and can pretty much be forgotten about. The only other time you'd touch it would be adding a new device to the network, which isn't an everyday occurrence.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  162. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by cduffy · · Score: 1

    If one were to go to the trouble of using an internal VPN rather than standard wireless encryption, it would really make sense to go the one extra step and ensure that only traffic from the VPN tun device on the endpoint gets routed to the internet...

    Maybe. My phone supports OpenVPN or IPsec, but I don't know about the PS3 or the Wii... and not having a "guest network" for visitors would be more than a little inhospitable. I've certainly had situations where I had a wireless home network with lighter security and a VPN running over it 24/7 (typically with that VPN's local endpoints being dedicated, work-only, company-owned machines).

    If I knew I had the kind of situation discussed in TFA, I'd certainly go the extra mile... but absent that kind of urgency, I don't think that "VPN over wireless == VPN traffic *only*" necessarily follows.

  163. Re:Would MAC address filtering counter this proble by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    A citizens arrest requires clear evidence of a felony.

    That's what I said, reason to believe. If someone reports it to you, and they don't normally lie to you, then that's evidence.

    Use of (legal) force during a citizens arrest requires an immediate threat of bodily harm.

    That's true. But there are numerous ways to set up a situation to create that threat. Cops do it every day in order to excuse brutality.

    You should learn more about citizens arrests.

    I already had to learn about them, and read the relevant text, when I became a security officer. That was a long time ago, though. I'm not proud of it or anything, it is only the basis of my interest.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  164. Once Again by Vrtigo1 · · Score: 1

    If you need WiFi, and want security too, stop trying to implement layer 2 security and move on to layer 3. It is much more practical to set up your WiFi network so that it has no route to your network, the Internet, or anything else, and then use VPN software to establish a secure tunnel, which in turns gets you access to these things. IPSec VPN with AES-256 encryption has been around for quite some time, is freely available, and isn't in the news for being cracked on a weekly basis like WiFi was/is.

    Toms Hardware had an article a few weeks ago about cracking encryption using GPUs. They concluded that as long as you're using a secure password, AES-256 encryption will keep your data safe well beyond the time you die, even against big multi-GPU clusters purpose built for password cracking. Of course, Moore's law has implications here, but as of *right now*, you would be hard pressed to find a method providing better wireless security.