I don't think this is garbage research -- I was involved in the USENIX Security'07 study someone else mentioned in this thread (http://s3g.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/papers/metrowifi-usenixsec07.pdf). That one was peer-reviewed at a well-respected conference, backed with a proof-of-concept worm (called Wildfire/A -- for both XP and Vista) and reaches somewhat similar conclusions. I think the main difference is that we looked at infections of computers behind APs rather than the APs themselves -- after all, you're more likely to get vulnerabilities there than on the APs. Another difference is that our study was performed in 2006, so the Indiana Univ. paper may involve more up-to-date wifi maps.
Of course, more widespread use of WPA mitigates a large part of this and other wifi threats, but as we argue in our study does not completely eliminate them.
FWIW, we are releasing a few animations of the simulated worm spread on youtube.. links are posted on http://s3g.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/proj/wildfire/
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I don't think this is garbage research -- I was involved in the USENIX Security'07 study someone else mentioned in this thread (http://s3g.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/papers/metrowifi-usenixsec07.pdf). That one was peer-reviewed at a well-respected conference, backed with a proof-of-concept worm (called Wildfire/A -- for both XP and Vista) and reaches somewhat similar conclusions. I think the main difference is that we looked at infections of computers behind APs rather than the APs themselves -- after all, you're more likely to get vulnerabilities there than on the APs. Another difference is that our study was performed in 2006, so the Indiana Univ. paper may involve more up-to-date wifi maps. Of course, more widespread use of WPA mitigates a large part of this and other wifi threats, but as we argue in our study does not completely eliminate them. FWIW, we are releasing a few animations of the simulated worm spread on youtube.. links are posted on http://s3g.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/proj/wildfire/