Sydney Has 10,000 Unsecured Wi-Fi Points

daria42 writes "A bunch of researchers have been driving around Sydney, Australia, and scanning for unsecured Wi-Fi networks. You'd think that in this day and age, with all that we've learned about security, that Wi-Fi security would be almost universal ... but the truth is that about 2.6 percent don't even have basic password protection. Extrapolating a little, that adds up to 10,000 unsecured Wi-Fi networks across Sydney alone."

Comments

Some might be intentional

[the_other_chewey]

Some of those might be intentional: I run an unencrypted wifi AP which is
bandwidth limited and routed through Tor as a public service. It is used regularly.

Also not covered will be those with open APs but additional authentification/encryption
layers, e.g. using a VPN.

Around here (not Australia, admittedly), open wifi is nearly non-existent (and all open
ones I've encountered over the last two years or so seem to fall into the categories above) -
WEP "secured" APs are another story however, there is still a worrying number of those around.
And I'm certain most WEP users are entirely unaware of their de-facto openness.

Re:Some might be intentional

[chewedtoothpick]

What is sad is that most of those WEP AP's were done (some likely recently) by supposedly knowledgeable people, such as WorstBuy's IdiotSquad.

As a consultant it's infuriating how often I will come across new clients (even many companies) whose WiFi networks were secured by those morons out of incompetence. I have even seen them install small business servers with direct-to-internet connections and not even a NAT firewall, because "You can't have a VPN server behind a firewall" which we all know is bullsh**.

Re:Some might be intentional

[the_raptor]

It doesn't matter if they are intentional. From local coverage about the "issue" here in Australia I think certain groups are trying to push the idea that having unsecured Wi-Fi is criminal negligence at best.

The articles are amusing in that they make it seem like unsecured Wi-Fi is mostly used for illegal activities and then say that having unsecured Wi-Fi could land you in trouble for what guests do through your link. If the first is true then it can used as a defence in the second instance. Especially as more and more judges are realising that having IP logs doesn't prove much and dismissing such cases.

The recent surge in stories about this "issue" is imo a reaction to such developments.

Why would you think that?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know all about security an I leave my network unprotected, on purpose, so other people can use it if necessary. If you know about security, then you also probably know that setting passwords on wifi won't guarantee you security anyway. Anything you want to e secure should be done over ssl, ssh, or VPN.

Another thing to mention, even if you use Ethernet, your data can be sniffed off the network as soon as it hits the ISP anyway if its not encrypted.

Re:No password =/= unsecured

[Lumpy]

I do it easier.. I have a spare 54GL sitting at the peak of my attic without any internet on it broadcasting about 60 AP's that say... Linksys, netgear, dlink, etc all open and unsecured. The cool part is the AP sits on a metal plate SHIELDING it's signal from my home. you cant see the AP's it's broadcasting from inside the house. (Knowing how RF works is a good thing)

It had two effects.

1 - it chased all the neighbors away from the channel I have them all broadcasting on.
2 - it forced all the neighbors to actually configure their routers to not have the name "linksys, dlink, netgear....." and they added encryption as they all show locks now.

Works great, and I am sure I give the wardriving kiddies as well as leaches fits when they try to connect to them. the one real AP up there called "FreeWifi" is my throttled and filtered free wifi AP I provide. works great and last time I checked it was getting used at least 5 times a week. It times out and drops you to a capture page every 50 minutes to annoy the cheap neighbors trying to leach. And no it does not mess up my WiFi as I use the channel it's on. it's the quietest channel for 4 blocks around because of my broadcaster.