Finally got the budget for my setup. Now have a nice mag mount aerial on the roof, Netstumbler and MS Mappoint. Shocking first test, I drove for ten minutes in Aylesbury and found 68 access points, 38 of which were unsecured. This was on the ring road, can't wait to get out again into the housing estates. Quick visit to the corner shop for chalk in bulk on the way home.

 

cracking idea

Darren

 

any chance of sum reall wife next door **** pics then?

 

I can't go looking at the networks themselves, bit too naughty. I have a nice script for Netstumbler that speaks the network name and states if it's open, I might get a loudhailer and wire that up

 

I found a similar number around Bracknell, suprising how many people can't be bothered to take 2 minutes to sort out some sort of encryption.

 

38 unsecured

I shouldn't be surprised really - I've found open access points in corporate networks, so you can't really blame the average home punter for not having worked it out

Jack - I would be interested in your little script that speaks the name

Chris

 

No worries Chris, sent to your hotmail account.

 

Hello

Mr. Clark, would you be so kind to send that to me? mailsteve@gmail.com

Thank you!

Steve.

 

'Shocking first test, I drove for ten minutes in Aylesbury and found 68 access points, 38 of which were unsecured. This was on the ring road, can't wait to get out again into the housing estates. Quick visit to the corner shop for chalk in bulk on the way home.'

I'm lost here. What are secured acess points etc?

 

Basically a person with less ethics than Jack could attach their PC to these unsecured networks and a) use that person's internet access b) browse that person's files/network.

Both of those potential options might not result in a good thing for the person who left their network open.


Best thing is to secure your Wireless Network by use of the inbuilt encryption and other security options & not risk Jack leaving a rude message on your home PC

 

oh & the chalk reference is to the past-time of when a building is found without a secure wireless network, a little sign is left on it to tell others where to find it - War Chalking

 

and if you dig a bit deeper into it, even the secured networks arent really secured - the WEP standard is easily crackable - takes about 5 mins

 

This means that Jack found 68 routers or access points advertising them self.

All wireless routers broadcasat them self (unless you turn this off) so that people can connect to them. However most people get carried away and excited that they have got thier broadband/ADSL connection sorted and that the wireless is working they forget to protect it.

Darren

 

Steve YHM

It would be very easy to discover printers on the open networks and print a nice info sheet on securing your network. But it's against the law.

Just made another loop and found 45 open out of 65! I'm yet to find a Belkin router using WEP.

 

Is it the case the, that if you switch off the broadcasting of the SSID, the you wil not pick up the broadcasting signal?????


phil

 

True with my setup as I'm only detecting broadcasted SSID's, there's plenty of software out there such as Kismet or Airsnort that will still find the acess point regardless of SSID broadcast.

 

IPSec VPN is the only real way of securing a Wireless network....

 

That implies a very busy AP to sample enough WEP data doesn't it though?

 

looks like an interesting subject!
Is there any info anywhere about how to secure wireless networks etc?

Cheers!
Tony

 

ill stick with my cat 5 cables for now

 

>Is there any info anywhere about how to secure wireless networks etc?

Try the the manual for your router. Start with WEP then look at MAC address filtering if you want to go the extra mile.

 

Jack - thanks I'll check my email.

Yes it does Chris - you would still need to sample around 7 gigs worth a data to collect enough info to even have a chance of cracking WEP - even in 64 bit format. 5 mins implies an extremely active AP and one fast mother of a PC to do the cracking. In theory WEP is crackable in seconds using programs such as WEPcrack or Airsnort. Most commercial networks I work on don't send that level of data, so for the average home user you would be typically looking at around 2 - 4 weeks to collect enough data - so in practical terms, cracking WEP is not as easy as it is made out to be.

WEP isn't brilliant by commerical standards, but it is better than nothing and for all intents and purposes - it will secure your network. Based on what Jack wrote, as a hacker why would you waste your time trying to crack WEP when half the APs are unsecured in the first place?

Chris

 

I'm using 128bit WEP encryption and MAC filtering on mine (only 1 MAC address allowed at the moment). Would you say that's adequate or will a determined hacker still be able to get in?

 

I'd say you were going a great job Iwan.

 

Yep Iwan, as Jack said - that's fine. Computer security (especially home PCs) is like a car alarm. If it acts as a strong enough deterent that it means the little ****** will go and nick someone elses car then it has been a success. So many people don't know the basics of security that there are rich pickings for hackers. They don't need to try that hard to be honest. If you are taking reasonable steps to protect yourself, then a hacker will look elsewhere for an easy target.

 

so if you

- block ping
- dont broadcast your SSID
- use WPA-PSK /TKIP or the other option (which escapes me) with a keyword

Is that OK?

 

That's fine. Why bother trying to find your network when some housing estates local to me have near blanket coverage of open networks.

 

Alex - you could also turn off DHCP and assign static IPs to your internal machines and limit PCs that can attach to your AP by specifying MAC addresses. Also you should change the SSID from its default setting (it can be anything you want). I have a lovely spreadsheet that details just about every WiFi equipment manufacturer and their default SSIDs

Chris

 

Any chance I can have a copy of that Chris? It'll save me some typing.

 

Aylesbury Netstumble.