Secured WLAN, Unsecured (filtered) Internet, Wardrivers...

No war drivers where I live. However, come on out and I'll cancel my broadband and use yours..

Reply to
Zebulon
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I just got a WRT54GS (v2) and have been playing around with TinyPEAP (Radius). It is a little flakey, but does work. Pretty cool. Don't think I can find a home for it on my WLAN (802.11a), but it is just something else to play around with. The WRT54GS cost next to nothing anyway. Nice to have another tool in the kit, should it be needed, anyway.

Happy with my WLAN as it is anyway. Seperate, using all the wifi security measures to fullest, and even doing VPN.

However, I like to keep one (internet only) AP completetely unsecured, by intention. I'm doing just this on a seperate network and using a captive portal (ZoneCD). I keep it open for my neighbors to use while they are outside on the back porches, along with anyone else that wants to. Not only could I care less, but I'm even inviting anyone that wants to use it by suffixing the SSID's with "_OPEN". My philosophy of wireless is that one of the greatest potentials is to provide free and open access. Unfortunetly, the world is full of stupid people, so you do have to take some cautionary measures, and that is why I have ZoneCD in the loop.

I wish manufacturers would adopt this type of thinking for home users. Many users would keep an internet-only pipe open, but are so worried about the girlfrield-less, Friday-night, wardrivers that they stop short of sleeping on their porch with a shotgun and dog. What is needed for them is simplicity to allow both their WLANs to be secured, while keeping an internet SSID open (but still filtered). I.e., everything ZoneCD provides, plus filtering against all the immature BS like strobing, repetative pinging, repative emailing, filtering against large blocks of known p*rn sites, ect. (I block as much p*rn as I can. Thats one thing I'm not about to keep open. Use my open AP all you want, but use your own damn internet for p*rn.)

I don't buy into the wardrivers' speal about how they are only out doing "research" and trying to save the world from itself. If that was the case, then why is it that the few times I got visited, they didn't simply mark the location and drive on? (Hell, I am even labeled "_OPEN"!) Do they simple just connect and pull up a browser to see if it works? Nope. Every time, the first thing they do is start strobing and seeing what they can screw with. (They never get anywhere, but get logged nicely.) If they are so damn beneign, then why is it if you do a deja search for "wardriving" one of the main things you find are posts asking how to spoof MAC's. Give me a break, no-lives! Get a damn girlfrield and I bet you care less about people's little $100 plastic boxes.

Thought about baiting 'em, by say having a captive portal redirect to http://www.g***se.cx/ (*DON'T LOOK! ITS VERY NASTY!*) and automatically upload strings of virii, but that would be no better than them (and also potentially cause harm to neighbors).

Cheers, Eric

Reply to
Eric

Well, as I previously wrote - if you lived here, and were in range, you could use mine.

As long as you are doing anything questionable with it, I could care less.

Keep in mind, as told by the captive portal redirector, that I do log and look at the logs semi-frequently. If I found someone "living on it", (common sense here), I'd probably start capturing all their traffic until I had an email address. I'd simply email them and tell them that I believed they were taking advantage of my open AP. I wouldn't tell them, but a reply with an apology would mean that they could stay -- while a tail between the legs ignore would mean they would be banned.

Cheers, Eric

Reply to
Eric

Eric, Eric, Eric... If they _could_ get a girlfriend (damned or not) do you think they'd be trying to hack your network?

Reply to
Derek Broughton

Off the top, I have to admit that I don't know anything about your DPA, but surely you don't have to register to keep your _own_ data? If that was the case, then every home user would legally be required to register, because we all have data. Until you have that email address, all you have is private traffic on your own network. Once you have captured enough information to know _how_ to contact that person, then it might become an issue.

Reply to
Derek Broughton

define questionable.

Here, you'd have to be registered with the data protection registrar in order to keep data and would have to comply with all the legal requirements of the Data Protection Act.

You'd also be liable if that data were misused. A lot of effort.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

Besides, why do they need to go out when they've got a laptop and his network?

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shall I go on? :)

Reply to
David Taylor

No, not your own, but if someone else is using my network and I know about it and i'm logging that data, that means i'm storing their data and I have to register and state the purposes that I intend to use that data for etc.

Yes quite. I'm just illustrating that it's not quite as simple as leaving open a hotspot. When you've got police suing homeowners because that policewoman slipped over on the back ramp that the homeowner needed for wheelchair access and thieves suing homeowners when they cut themselves on misplaced obstacles in the back garden etc, I have no doubt that some spammer or similar will be quite happy to sue the network owner for storing *their* personal data, especially when they were explicity invited to use that network.

David.

Reply to
David Taylor

LOL

Good point!

Cheers, Eric

Reply to
Eric

Yep, it is quite sad.

Shakespear was so right when he said, "First we kill all the lawyers."

I'd like to see BS trivial civil matters go back to being settled the old-fashioned and mature way: through violence and center-town showdowns. :^)

Cheers!

-Eric

Reply to
Eric

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