Windows 10 Shares Your Wi-Fi Password With Contacts

gsslay writes: The Register reports that Windows 10 will include, defaulted on, "Wi-Fi Sense" which shares wifi passwords with Outlook.com contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, Facebook friends. This involves Microsoft storing the wifi passwords entered into your laptop which can then be used by any other person suitably connected to you. If you don't want someone's Windows 10 passing on your password, Microsoft has two solutions; only share passwords using their Wi-Fi Sense service, or by adding "_optout" to your SSID.

Comments

Re:No

[Harlequin80]

Serious question - who here is not running a guest wifi access point? I would never give full access to my network to an unknown device. So I run an open guest wifi which is on a different subnet and has its internet rate limited.

Re:if that's true,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What I would like to see explained in more detail is the claim that 'wifi sense doesn't reveal your plaintext password' during the sharing process.

My understanding was that(except WPA2 with RADIUS and a suitably chosen EAP) there isn't any provision for authenticating to a password protected AP without knowing the password. The AP itself might be able to destroy the password after it has been set, saving only a hash, as is good practice to keep more important sets of usernames and passwords from being compromised; but the client requesting authentication needs the password. The non 'enterprise' cases were designed to be easy to use, not particularly clever; and MS has limited room to get creative without causing nasty breakage on large numbers of variously dysfunctional legacy APs.

With a proper full WPA2 setup, or with one of the 'no authentication at the AP; but captive portal and/or VPN is the only way to access anything interesting' arrangements, you have more options; but how can you 'share' authentication to a WPA-PSK or WEP network without also sharing the key? Did they actually come up with something really clever, or does the UI just not show you the password, thus 'hiding' it?

Re:Bad Summary, Only new part is the sharing optio

[ewhac]

First, we're only talking Windows 10 PHONE

ERROR: INCORRECT

First: This is in Windows 10 desktop, as detailed here, complete with screenshots: http://www.howtogeek.com/21970...

Second: Even if this were only confined to Windows Phone 10, it would still be monumentally stupid.

Re:if that's true,

[bondsbw]

And I didn't mean to downplay how big of a problem this may be for the many people who have a password-protected open network for guest access.

I'm just keeping in mind, though, that guest networks are typically isolated from the main network and the guest network would only be shared with friends-of-friends*... probably not an actual issue for the vast majority of people, so much as a theoretical one.

* Actually, come to think of it, would the password also go to friends-of-friends-of-friends? Friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-friends? How deep can this go? The whole six-degrees-of-separation thing comes to mind... could this end up pushing almost everyone's network passwords to the entire connected internet? Yeah, I'd like more info, and the sooner the better.

Re:if that's true,

[whoever57]

I think that you are mis-reading the FAQ, I found this in it

When you share Wi-Fi network access with Facebook friends, Outlook.com contacts, or Skype contacts, they'll be connected to the password-protected Wi-Fi networks that you choose to share and get Internet access when they're in range of the networks (if they use Wi-Fi Sense).

What is even more interesting is that it apparently automatically accepts any terms of use and provides passwords to web-based WiFi access logins, which could create some interesting legal situations (did you really accept the terms, and are you logging in with someone else's username/password)?

Re:No

[vux984]

. So I run an open guest wifi which is on a different subnet and has its internet rate limited.

Even my guest network is password protected. Its for my guests not for everybody. If I wanted it for everybody, there wouldn't be a password on it, and people wouldn't need a windows feature to shared with their contacts.

Many of my neighbors also have guest networks... none of them are wide open.

This feature is probably the worst/dumbest thing I've seen in Windows 10 so far. Actually no... the inability to disable bing searching the web when you use the search in the start menu is the dumbest hting I've seen in windows 10... if that shit isn't fixed by release nobody should upgrade. NOBODY.

(And the sad thing is I actually over all like windows 10... but its just stuffed with bloat I don't want. At least most of it I can shut off... live tiles, cortana, using microsoft accounts, etc... but its becoming more and more work to set the settings up right.

I'm looking forward to a windows 10 de-crapifier powertool shortly after release... hell I'm tempted to write one.

Re:if that's true,

[unixisc]

I think that you are mis-reading the FAQ, I found this in it

When you share Wi-Fi network access with Facebook friends, Outlook.com contacts, or Skype contacts, they'll be connected to the password-protected Wi-Fi networks that you choose to share and get Internet access when they're in range of the networks (if they use Wi-Fi Sense).

What is even more interesting is that it apparently automatically accepts any terms of use and provides passwords to web-based WiFi access logins, which could create some interesting legal situations (did you really accept the terms, and are you logging in with someone else's username/password)?

'You choose to share' is key here, so the headline is definitely misleading. I could choose to share my primary SSID, or I could choose to share just my guest SSID. If I did the latter, there shouldn't be a problem