The Joys Of Insecure Wireless Networks

Today was moving day. I moved my entire small bedroom at my mothers house into her car (well, 50% of it anyway) and we drove 56 miles to a town called “Egham”, popularly referred to as “Eggs ‘n’ Ham”. This is the location of my university, Royal Holloway University of London and also the location of my new house, which I will be staying in for the next 2 years.

The house is a 4 bedroomed semi-detached with a nice large lounge and a plantless garden (hey, it saves me from moving the lawn). The kitchen is less than satisfactory for 4 people, but I can imagine us all relaxing after the lounge, laptops on our laps, programming to our hearts content (we are all computer science nerds).

However, one major problem loomed in advance of our move. The problem of setting up internet. The house in question had had every service other than water and electricity cut by the previous students moving out (for obvious reasons). This means the phone doesn’t work, which in turn sets the internet activity for the house to nil.

This is a major problem.

I have been known to experience panic attacks if left without the internet for 3 hours or more. I can do about 2 hours without breaking into a cold sweat, but 3 and I start shaking. It is so bad I pay £5 a month (~$10) for internet on my phone, which is actually a good investment as it not only saves my life but allows me access to email, Google maps, YouTube, and indeed this blog if I ever need them. Some comments I have posted on this blog are actually from my phone because I really couldn’t be arsed to wait until I got home.

Anyway, given the stupid amount of time it takes in this country to set internet up, I was pretty worried. The of course, the answer struck. Could it be possible, that in this day and age, with all the fuss about security and data theft, that some mindless idiot could have an insecure wireless network in range of my house?

The answer is a resounding yes.

Not only has this idiot not secured his wireless network, allowing anyone with a wireless card to connect free of charge, but he chose to name it “Cool Dude’s Wireless“. This makes the situation even better, because I can now rationalize that this guy deserves to get his internet stolen by me. Anyone who knows how to change the name of their network, must know how to set the encryption to anything but “none”. In most configuration options those are the only things you can change!

Before people start going on at me for stealing some unfortunate (albeit idiotic) guys wireless, this situation is only temporary. We will be getting a much faster internet connection locally as soon as we can. I’ll probably order it later today actually. Suffice to say, our network will be secured with WPA2 encryption.

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Written by Adrian Hayter

July 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Posted in general

Tagged with home, house, internet, networks, wireless

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Comments to “The Joys Of Insecure Wireless Networks”

JamesM Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 2:37 pm (GMT)

Maybe the Cool Dude is not as anal or selfish as you.

Maybe he realized thatthe nature of internet traffic is very bursty so several people can use an internet connection at once. Being a generous sole he has decided to setup an open wireless router so others may use the service too.

If you look at your total packet count for the week, and divide it by the rate of speed of your connection, you will find that you use very little of your real bandwidth and most of the time your connection is idle.

Calling some one an idiot for being generous shows how small minded and stupid you are. Happy to much of others but too intellectually tight fisted to return the favor.

The work of a small and selfish mind. Maybe next time you will see an open network and think, hay, what if the world were like this? What if I shared my connection and encouraged others to do the same? Then I would be able to use the internet all over the place, not just at home, the library or Starbucks.

Roegge Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm (GMT)

I have been doing this sense I first bought a wireless router, my ssid is free wifi lol. My belief is that information and knowledge should be free so, why hold it back if I have the chance to give it

During my recent change of isp I used one of my neighbors wireless signals in my time of need.

Adrian Hayter Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 3:53 pm (GMT)

Calling some one an idiot for being generous shows how small minded and stupid you are. Happy to much of others but too intellectually tight fisted to return the favor.

Your ridiculous beliefs are based on nothing but assumption. You have no clue whether these people are generous at all and decide to criticize me for spreading messages about the importance of security.

Perhaps he is being generous yes, but he is also being a fool. Nobody should just share an open network with neighbours. The proper way to do it would be to make sure you know everyone who is accessing the network, something done by encrypting it and sharing the key.

When we get the internet set up at the house, I will encrypt it with the highest level of encryption I can. If someone comes round saying their internet is broken, I will gladly give them the encryption key but will also enable firewalls so they cannot possibly attack the network. After their internet is back, I will change the encryption key again.

Being generous is great until you get your data stolen.

Hittman Says:
July 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm (GMT)

It’s always dangerous to assume you know someone else’s motivation. My first thought, reading this post, was that he decided to be generous. And you decided to insult him for it. YOUR ridiculous beliefs, about him, are based on nothing but assumption.

StumbleUpon sent me here because it’s an atheist site. Atheists are usually driven by reason, not assumption, and most of us give the benefit of the doubt to other people when their motives aren’t clear. Maybe you’ll grow into that as you mature.

A Word About Network Security - The Atheist Blogger Says:
July 28th, 2008 at 6:06 pm (GMT)

[...] subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!My previous post about an unknown neighbour with an unencrypted wireless network has provoked some negative comments. People have said I was “stupid” for calling the [...]