Security-necessary concern?

Maybe I need education. A lot of you seem paranoid about WPA and WEP and whatever.We have a not unusual layout - upstairs desktop/router and downstairs laptop. Other than someone taking over my machine, presumably by accident or wild spam, to bring down Microsoft or whomever, what's my worrry? I'm not exactly high profile, tho some of you might hack my birthday or mother's maiden name. I have nothing on the machines of value to anyone else i.

I'm much more interested in whether I can retain my connection when one, sometimes two, other AP's are received (I love Netstumbler). Can you block (I think so) other SSID/MAC?

Brad

Reply to
avalanche*
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Its unlikely, but someone (eg a neighbour's teenager, a driveby pornographer or fraudster) might hijack your connection to do something illegal. Or install a keylogger and monitor your activity.

Do you do internet banking? Or buy stuff online via credit card?

If you're using Windows XP builtin wireless support, look for Preferred Networks and remove the ones you don't want. Mark McIntyre

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

  1. Somebody could more easily pretend to be you (by ip addr) and do bad things.
  2. You'll lose bandwidth when somebody else is using your internet connection.
Reply to
Cloud Burst

Hi, Do you leave the door open all the time at your house? I wonder. Tony

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Which should be protected by SSL...

Reply to
David Taylor
[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

POP3 password in the clear. Same password used for online banking.

Reply to
John Navas

What does this mean, please?

Reply to
avalanche*

That's an assumption.

Reply to
David Taylor

Besides, online banking in the UK doesn't take just a password.

It typically requires a secret, entry of several digits, selected via drop down characters and of course an account number or reference of some sort, all of which are SSL protected.

If your online banking over there just requires a password then that sucks bigtime.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

He means that if you were dim enough to use the same p/w for both your mail and banking accts, then someone snooping your mail p/w could login to your bank account, even tho the latter is an encrypted connection.

Mark McIntyre

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Perhaps not only that - indeed any other places where a login and password is required. That was happening back in the 1970s, and hasn't changed much since then.

I'd be a heck of a lot more worried about someone kicking over the computer and gaining access to all data. The O/P is posting with

so one hopes he's not so brain-dead as to be using LookOut, or Internet Exploiter, but a lot of people can't be bothered securing their systems, and insist on "Remember my Password". The "bad guy" doesn't have to worry about sniffing usernames and passwords - the system remembers them for you or anyone who gains access to the box.

Remember the 'W32/Deloder' worm of two years ago (see CERT Advisory CA-2003-08 on any search engine) that cracked a huge number of windoze boxes because the idiots were using incredibly st00pid passwords like

0 12345678 aaa login qwer 000000 123456789 abc love root 00000000 1234qwer abc123 mypass secret

and about 72 more of equal complexity. If your system is protected by such wonderful passwords (or worse, none at all), the security of your wireless link may be the only thing keeping them at bay. Old guy

Reply to
Moe Trin

Can you tell me how to find/get to Preferred Networks? TIA.

Brad

Reply to
avalanche*

Its one of the "advanced" buttons off the main wireless config menu in Windows Zero Config. I'm at my non-wireless machine right now and really I'm afraid I can't be bothere to trot off through to another room to do precisely what you would be doing yourself ie searching the various buttons and menus off the control panel /networks or network taskbar icon context menu till you get a list of preferred networks. Mark McIntyre

Reply to
Mark McIntyre
[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

Of course. And it's all too common.

Reply to
John Navas

I have to admit that, until recently, _only_ my banking account was any different from any other passwords. Now that I have software that stores all my usernames/passwords in an encrypted safe, I'm a little happier using unique passwords, but you still have to remember how to get into the safe...and heaven help me if I forget the password to that!

Reply to
Derek Broughton

Password Safe

Reply to
John Navas

Talk about a non-sequitur. In the first place, that's a month-old post, so your response is tantamount to spamming. In the second, if Password Safe - not nearly as useful to me as KWallet, since that's integrated into my desktop software - can be accessed without me needing a password, it's not very secure, is it?

Reply to
Derek Broughton

Nothing of the sort.

I didn't say it could.

All I was doing was letting readers know the name and source of the password application, which is entirely legitimate and appropriate. Take a deep breath and calm down. You're letting your emotions run away with you.

Reply to
John Navas

Then put your spam in its own thread. It had zero to do with my comment.

Reply to
Derek Broughton

[shrug] Do you always have a chip on your shoulder like this, or is this just a bad time for you?
Reply to
John Navas

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