I must be honest, I havn't heard of any reports here in Sweden (or
anywhere else) that this is a real problem, are there any true incidents
that this has happend?
Yes. If you sit with your laptop in the park across from our office
you can see 3 unprotected wireless domains. There was an article [although
I can't remember what publication] featuring a few people driving through
the City of London [London's financial community area] they found
serveral unprotected LANs.
Regards,
Neil.
Neil J. McRae wrote:
I must be honest, I havn't heard of any reports here in Sweden (or anywhere else) that this is a real problem, are there any true incidents that this has happend?
Yes. If you sit with your laptop in the park across from our office
you can see 3 unprotected wireless domains. There was an article [although
I can't remember what publication] featuring a few people driving through
the City of London [London's financial community area] they found serveral unprotected LANs.Regards,
Neil.
Just cause there are unprotected WLANs dosn't imply that spammers use them (perhaps its to hard for the spammers ;)).
Corporations should protect ther WLANs but saying that spamming is a great threat is to overdo it.
Regards
John
To some extent.
Imagine a few of the following scenarios:
1) You wok for an ISP and have access through them. One large
enough that they apply their AUP to their own people. You have ISDN/DSL
or some other connection w/ reverse-dns for your personal domain @ home.
Someone drives by your place, finds your unprotected lan, sends spam, hacks,
etc.. complaints come in, you lose job because you were a spammer and
your employer needs to stop, etc.
2) You are a small company, someone does this, and you get
blacklisted as a spamhaus. you are unable to get internet access.
3) you have a cable modem as your only high-speed connectivity.
you have one of the linksys/whatever nat+802.11a/b boxen. you
get used, you get blacklisted and can not get high-speed pr0n again.
While these seem like minor annoyances in some cases, they
can be quite dramatic to the person on the receiving end. I wish
the wireless vendors would use a somewhat more inteligent approach and
turn WEP on by default when shipping their units and at the cost of
a few cents more they can print a sticker on the box that can be
removed later that has the uniqe WEP key for that unit. Similar to
the way when you go to the hardware store you can play match-up to get
the same key for multiple locks.
- Jared
I believe the question was use of the access to spam, not just that the
majority of users leave their equipment (all, not just the wireless
part) in the original, out-of-the-box configuration. Remember those
comments on the flahsing 12:00 on most VCRs?
BTW, everyone out there with a random number/character upper/lower case
password at least 12 characters long on every piece of equipment they
own, different username/password on each piece please, raise your hand.
Thought so. 
Note my hand is not raised. I'd go nuts. Although the
approriate pieces do conform to this.
Best regards,
Jared Mauch wrote:
Imagine a few of the following scenarios:
1) You wok for an ISP and have access through them. One large
enough that they apply their AUP to their own people. You have ISDN/DSL
or some other connection w/ reverse-dns for your personal domain @ home.
Someone drives by your place, finds your unprotected lan, sends spam, hacks,
etc.. complaints come in, you lose job because you were a spammer and
your employer needs to stop, etc.
2) You are a small company, someone does this, and you get
blacklisted as a spamhaus. you are unable to get internet access.
3) you have a cable modem as your only high-speed connectivity.
you have one of the linksys/whatever nat+802.11a/b boxen. you
get used, you get blacklisted and can not get high-speed pr0n again.While these seem like minor annoyances in some cases, they
can be quite dramatic to the person on the receiving end. I wish
the wireless vendors would use a somewhat more inteligent approach and
turn WEP on by default when shipping their units and at the cost of
a few cents more they can print a sticker on the box that can be
removed later that has the uniqe WEP key for that unit. Similar to
the way when you go to the hardware store you can play match-up to get
the same key for multiple locks.
Hi
In some way you are right, but still I think it's even worse to use WEP cause then the admins might think it's safe, it takes about 15 minutes to crack a wepkey, so instead of drive-by spamming you could call it drive-by, have a bagle, start spamming.
The most hardware/software indipendent solution I have seen so far is the use of VPN, simply place the WLAN outside your own LAN.
/John
The cost of enabling/labeling may be only a 'few cents more' but the
cost of support when Joe Sixpack forgets his key/loses the label is
another story altoghether. There's a reason most equipment, not just
wireless, is deliverd in 'chimp simple' configuration...
Best regards,
Jared Mauch wrote:
In some way you are right, but still I think it's even worse to use WEP
cause then the admins might think it's safe, it takes about 15 minutes
to crack a wepkey, so instead of drive-by spamming you could call it
drive-by, have a bagle, start spamming.
I'm not trying to fix the underlying wireless encryption
option just provide a simple way that the manufacturers can ship
a 'more secure' out-of-the-box-product.
The most hardware/software indipendent solution I have seen so far is
the use of VPN, simply place the WLAN outside your own LAN.
Absolutely.
There are a lot of things one can do:
1) enable wep
2) rotate wep keys
3) authenticate by mac-address
4) restrict dhcp to known mac-addresses
5) force utilization of vpn/ipsec client
Obviously not all of these solutions are available
in all cases, but in a home or small lan-environment a subset of
these will increase security (even if it's reinforcing the screen door
with 1/16" of balsa wood)
- jared
This is what console ports / direct cable connects to a mgmt
port (usb or whatnot) are useful for. As well as an overall 'clear config'
button on the unit.
Now if someone can help me figure out the unlock code
for the microwave in the house i bought so i can stop
unplugging it, let me know 
- jared
Wanna bet if Joe Sixpack bothers to re-enable anything he doesn't have
to after his first use of the clear config button/power cycle? This also
breaks physical security. Find the power panel on the house (accessible
by fire code) cycle the power, hack into the now open system... Hey,
that's just as plausible as most of the other scenarios in this thread.
That's why my Linksys maintains its state through a power cycle. One
of the reasons I specifically selected it.
As far as the microwave, RTFM. Oh, wait, if its not a new house the
original Joe Sixpack typical "I don't need no stupid manual" 'Merican
likely threw them away. Might try the manufacturer's web site. Many
include PDF manual files and maybe even a Customer Support page.
Apologies if you've already been there.
Best regards,
* alan_r1@corp.earthlink.net (Al Rowland) [Wed 11 Sep 2002, 19:13 CEST]:
The cost of enabling/labeling may be only a 'few cents more' but the
cost of support when Joe Sixpack forgets his key/loses the label is
another story altoghether. There's a reason most equipment, not just
wireless, is deliverd in 'chimp simple' configuration...
Lucent access points - at least, the residential gateways - actually
come with WEP enabled by default. (Not that it's beyond trivial to
guess the key, though)
Regards,
-- Niels.
There are a lot of things one can do:
1) enable wep
2) rotate wep keys
3) authenticate by mac-address
4) restrict dhcp to known mac-addresses
5) force utilization of vpn/ipsec client
Suddenly laying down UTP doesn't seem so bad anymore...
Obviously not all of these solutions are available
in all cases, but in a home or small lan-environment a subset of
these will increase security (even if it's reinforcing the screen door
with 1/16" of balsa wood)
You can forget rotating WEP keys on anything that isn't four times as
expensive as what most people have at home. Authentication by MAC address
doesn't buy you anything since someone else can "borrow" the MAC address.
Does anyone have experience with using asymmetric WEP keys? (= key 1 for
AP -> client and key 2 for client -> AP.) I'm thinking about doing this so
I can at least obscure my upstream traffic even if the downstream WEP key
is public knowledge. Obviously this isn't anything near safe, but this way
I'd risk the inconvenience of someone stealing my HTTP cookies or
passwords and messing up my settings for some non-essential web services.
(Anything even remotely sensitive will run over SSH or SSL of course.)
Getting your entire corporate LAN dumped into the RBL mess could be devastating, how much productivity lost? How much time wasted getting OFF the RBL? How many contacts missed, correspondences missed?
You could be getting into a very rough ride for some days to some weeks, as the block information propagates down the food chain, then as the un-block does likewise.
Its just better to take the defensive and encrypt in the first place.
Agreed, for cyber-squatter places like coffee shops and airports, this could be a pain.