unidentified network

unsecured and i can connect to it. Is there any way to see other computers or printers on this. I want to find who it is so i can show them how to secure it. Like if i could send somthing to the printer or something. I did an ipconfig /all and it just shows the host name as myhome

Play direction finder. It's more fun than trying to break into someones computah just to identify them. Get a directional antenna of some form. A 15 or 19 dBi dish antenna:

about right. Also, get a pigtail. Fire up Netstumbler or Kismet and display the signal strength on a laptop or PDA. There are a few tricks to playing direction finder which might save some frustration.

2.4Ghz likes to bounce off buildings and walls resulting in lots of false reflections. Go for a drive with a map and ruler. Pull over and take a bearing. Draw a line on the map from your location using the bearing. Move down the road a bit and do it again. After a while, you'll have lots of lines to work with. Many will be off into never-never land, caused by reflections. However, the majority will cross at the location of the access point. There are automated mapping tools for doing this used in ham radio transmitter hunts, but that's overkill for this application.

Incidentally, a while ago, I noticed a new open access point in the neighborhood. So, I did some minor direction finding and identified the location as a local residence. When I informed the owner of the problem, he declared that I was some manner of evil hacker, that I should "mind my own business", and that he would call the police if I didn't immediately disappear. So much for trying to be helpful.

might try cmd net use hope the thing doesn't have any problems or virus because you're gonna be blamed for everything once you touch his network

any help

Thanks

No offense, but -- why?

This person might be very aware that this SSID is open and might not take too kindly to someone dumping something to a printer.

I keep a wide open 802.11b SSID, but it can only be used to get out to the internet. (Can't get to anything on my LAN with it.)

Hi, i think there is a way to send a message to the person(PCs?). i recently downloaded a tool called Airsnare that i personally use to detect rogue cards. it has an interface that throws up a list of detected mac addresses. if you have already created a known mac addresses list, the others show up as unknown. you can also sniff traffic much like airsnort or ethereal but you can also click on a mac address and send a text message to that address. in case that person is on a windoze machine then he gets a pop-up system message with whatever you typed!!! pretty cool and scary.

Pretty much my experience. People drag these little boxes home from best buy and think everything is perfectly OK and they are so clever when the LEDs light up and they can use instant messenger out on the deck...

And it doesn't stop there. I dropped my friend off at a large car dealer. I noticed they had a lot of wireless notebooks. I fired up mine and saw "linksys" and a completly open network including all of their office equipment. I mentioned this to one of the people there and he said the owner thought it was a good idea so someone went over to best buy and got a wireless "thing" and hooked it up.

Yeah, I guess you could. It really depends on the neighborhood. If you're facing a large apartment building with a substantial number of windows, it's kinda difficult to determine which window with a dish. It's impossible with just a laptop. However, in a neighborhood full of single family dwellings, a simple drive-by should work.

Incidentally, one problem with the dish antenna method is that when you get close, there's often more signal going directly to the exposed part of the PCMCIA cards internal antenna, than through the dish. I have to wrap the antenna section of the card in aluminium foil to prevent this problem.

I was thinking of designing a mobile wi-fi direction finder contraption that is mounted on the roof of a vehicle. Probably a mechanically rotating directional antenna coupled to a PPI (plan position indicator) type of "radar like" display on a laptop. I was also considering a hand held "homer" type of device, with a left-zero-right indicator. However, a bit of marketing research indicated that there was little interest in paying big bux for a consumer version.

Assumption is the mother of all screwups. Doesn't everyone have a laptop? I have about 6 laptops. All have dead batteries, insufficient RAM, slothish CPU's, flakey keyboards, and various internal defects. It's a fair assumption that if one is involved with

802.11 wireless type of networking, that one would own a portable wireless device. I realize that it's possible for people to use wireless for non-portable machines, but laptops were the original and probably the most common application. Yeah, it's an assumption, but methinks a fair one.

I borrowed one to see what it would do. The plus version would not work with an 802.11g only (802.11b compatibility disabled) access point. It worked just fine driving through a local strip mall that has a mess of access points running through large glass windows. However, when faced with the residential maze, it was useless. I had to be practically on the front doorstep before it would detect anything. The Proxim 7400 FHSS PCMCIA card "spectrum analyzer" I purchased is better, but is really insensitive due to lack of SS processing gain and synchronization. Best of the bunch is my "site survey" contraption, which is a panel antenna and pre-amp mounted on top of a 25ft telescopeing fiberglass tree pruning pole, which feeds a butchered MMDS downconverter and eventually a borrowed spectrum analyzer. Unfortunately, that attracts far too much attention from the police. I was using it on top of a 3 story parking garage in downtown Santa Cruz and got to meet some of the SCZ PD. They seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing. I don't think that total stealth in transmitter hunting is required. However, try not to be too blatant and obvious.

Yech, y're right. It didn't screw up like that in the past and would always go to the correct page. I'll scribble the webmaster a nasytgram. FireFox and Netscrape 7.2 do the same thing. If you look at the bottom of the page source code, this note might be a clue: "Please note that some javascript will not work due to missing frames" I'll see if I can find one of those cardboard monitor frames, with all the keyboard shortcuts and hints. Maybe that will help.

Web server exhorcism is becoming a respectable profession.

Given the number of cards today that have external antenna connections, this isn't a great first suggestion. I'd just drive around without the external antenna. Very likely you could tell just from signal strength. And that presumes that the original poster has a laptop, which wasn't mentioned. Maybe a Kensington K33086 WiFi FINDER PLUS would be in order, althought I don't think I would care $24.95 worth about my neighbor's unsecured WAP.

There's something about that fab-corp site, and the way different IE6 "favorites" get saved. I go to Jeff's link, and the URL noted above does not show up in my address bar, just

But I am showing a page called "The Basement". No directional antennas here today, but this looks like a refurb inventory, so I click on "Antennas Parabolic" on the left of the screen. The first item is a 14dBi solid parabolic directional.

I decide to save this favorite, which I thought I had from one of Jeff's previous postings, and get a warning that I already have it saved. So I don't save it, and just for exercise, I look at the properties of what I did already have saved. Nothing odd there. I click on the "old" one, and it takes me to a pdf of my Conifer antenna by a different name... Jeff had provided that to me long ago. Still the same short URL in my address bar. I open the old "favorite" with a text editor, and find: [DEFAULT] BASEURL=

BASEURL= How odd. I go to different pages, save different named bookmarks, and things get really silly. I click "back", I see the page that I was on previously, and, without me doing anything, I go back to the basement page.

This site is haunted.

At any rate, there are no directional antennas in the basement today.

He didn't say he was trying to screw with their network. He simply offered them the courtesy of advising them that their network was open. This is no different than what I did the other morning. There is a family living a few doors down that I only casually know. I noticed that their front door was blowing around in the wind. Since it is winter I didn't think it was intentional. I went over, knocked and tried to get someones attention but did not enter the house. I concluded no one was there so I closed the door. I noticed that it had to be lightly slammed to latch. I left them a short note and got a call to thank me later that night. It seems the last person leaving didn't make sure the door was latched. Or how about the other day. I was about a mile from the turnpike entrance and a guy pulled along side tooting his horn and motioning me to stop. I did and he said that he noticed my right rear tire was really low. I thanked him and he left and I pulled over to have a look. He saved me from what could have been dangerous or a lot of hassle.

If someone finds a SSID of "xxx_OPEN" it is pretty clear that is an open invitation. If someone finds a SSID of "linksys" it is pretty clear someone is clueless about the possibilities.

"Jeff Liebermann" wrote

Not trying to be offensive or start a long winded debate, but I'm failing to see the point of attempting to screw with someone's (W)LAN (original poster's intention) just "because its open and you can". What exactly is the intention? Too feel good after "proving them a point"?

Agreed that many of these open SSIDs are open unintentionally by folks that using equipment "right out of the box" without doing any configuration, but many are also intentionally left open. I keep an open SSID myself. If I were approached about my "open SSID", I would respond more in kind than the person you encountered, but would also inform the "helpful person" that this particular SSID is intentionally left open. In fact, the SSID name itself (which has an extention of "_OPEN") is clearly identifying itself as an open SSID. You can't get to anything on my LAN through this SSID, you can only get out onto the internet. Someone with intentions of malice could use this open SSID for spamming or downloading child pornography, true, but I've begun taking steps against this. These aren't difficult issues to overcome.

Why do I keep an open SSID for internet access? Well, its simple -- I may want to use someone else's at some time. Should I expect to be able to use someone else's if I don't provide some open access myself? I wouldn't, however, use someone else's unless it was clearly identified as being open though. I.e., from the third story in my house, in the early morning, I can sometimes see my neighbors 802.11g SSID -- which is not only open but operating on channel 6 with a default "linksys" SSID. Most likely, its open unintentionally. I'm not going to poke around on it, nor am I going to knock on his door though. If the subject comes up during conversation, I'll mention it to him, but otherwise its not my place. Out of courteousy, I have my open 802.11b running on channel 11 in order to avoid any interference between our AP's. *shrug*, its nothing more than simple respect.

As for my WLAN traffic, I'm confident thats its completetly secure as it is a physically seperate network and configured with upmost security in mind. Not to mention that my WLAN is using 802.11a, in which the limited range is a "security feature" in itself.

Like I said, I'm not attempting to offend or "troll". I'm only simply bringing up discussion in an attempt to understand why someone feels like they need to "take it upon themself" to poke around someone else's open network.

Cheers,

-ES

So what who cares

To the original poster... Don't bother. If you can easily determine that the WAP belongs to a friend, you might question why it is open. That doesn't require any electronic survey, just a chat. I know which of my neighbors have cable modems, which have a clue about networking, which don't want to know, etc.

If you intend to educate someone that you don't know, it might be a lot more trouble than it's worth. And there are thousands more in the city.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

A friend of mine thought that wireless was a better deal than running cable when he moved his "computer room" to make way for a pending arrival in the family. He bought PCI cards, and of course one of them is on the wrong side of the computer to get a decent signal. I was fussing around, and unscrewed the antenna to see what kind of connector it was. There was no change in the signal level =:-)

I fixed him temporarily by adding my wrinkly aluminum foil corner reflectors to the upstairs WAP, and laying both antennas parallel with the floor to get a better bite of the doughnut. Relocation of the WAP is in order, but there are no phone jacks downstairs. Something not cosmetically pleasing is coming up soon. Maybe an external antenna on the one PC that is having trouble, since I happen to have that cable handy, and don't have one that matches the WAP.

You might want to re-read the original posting that started this thread. The intent was clearly defined as: "I want to find who it is so i can show them how to secure it." which was also my intent. I even had a screen dump printout of some of the directories on his computah that were visible as proof. I was tempted to drop something on their desktop with a name like: "Your wireless is insecure. Please call xxx-xxx-xxxx for details". I actually did that once or twice, but nobody ever called. Same with printing a message on their printer. These days, I don't bother. If it's insecure, it's their problem. If they need help, there are plenty of helpful people and web piles available. I spend my time beating up on lazy manufacturers that ship hardware that's insecure by default.

Well, there's a question I ask myself often and never have a good answer. Why do I bother answering questions or trying to help people? If I were half way smart, I would adopt a more selfish mode and concentrate on revenue generating projects instead of giving away expensive consulting time for free on Usenet. I will admit that it feels good to be helpful. Perhaps the good karma will eventually be paid back. Meanwhile, I don't have an exact answer to why people want to be helpful. Perhaps they learn something from the research involved in answering questions. Maybe they're repaying a debt owed by someone else that was helpful in the past. Sometimes people thank me for the help and ask what they can offer. I tell them to find an interesting question that's being ignored, do the necessary research, and provide a complete and detailed answer. Most do it, realize the amount of work involved, and then run away to preserve their sanity.

Open an MSDOS cmd window in W2K or XP. Run:

net send IP_ADDRESS "Your Message Here"

or

net send * "Your Message Here"

which sends the message to everyone. Instead of IP_ADDRESS, it will also accept the domain name, or the machine name.

I do understand your opinion might be shared by some. If you are driving down the road and you see a problem just say "So what who cares" and keep driving. In the case I described all of the businesses data (and perhaps even their business if the right stuff was destroyed) was at risk because they don't see the "invisible" entry point they created by allowing anyone within around their building complete access to their network. This is no different than driving by in the pre-wireless era and seeing someone loading computers and stuff into a truck at 2 AM and not calling the police.

Hi All,

Pardon my intrusion ... I'm new here and just learning the ins/outs of wireless networking... my home and office networks are secure 128 WEP encrypted and all that jazz .... but if I were not secure, how easy is it for somebody to "see" what's on my machine? How do they get in? I'm also learning the ethical side of 'borrowing' wireless networks that are not secured and the dangers of doing so ... for instance ...

I was in my car dealer a few weeks ago getting an o/c and fired up the laptop ... I got one, weak, unsecured network and popped on it to get to the 'net to check my mail, etc., but would it have been possible for me to actually get inside the PC that had the unsecure network? OTOH would this person been able to poke around in my laptop w/out my knowledge? Is it as simple as seeing a local machine on a LAN or is it more 'hacker' like?

Thanks Catty One

This is no

Ask bookeeping... Only time to shut down the system and move stuff is usually around 2 or three am.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Jeff,

I often ask myself the same question, why do I always offer to help ? And truthfully the answer is, I DON'T KNOW. That's just how some people are. Sometimes I regret an offer to help, but for some reason, I still keep offering.

For example, a friend's car broke down in a city that was 3 hour's away, by highway. He left it there, at a car dealer, to get an estimate. At work, when he told me the story, I offered help retreiving it if he needed, but at that time he didn't think it would be necessary. Three weeks later, the dealer called and asked him to remove it if he's not going to have them fix it, which he wasn't, because after all, who want's to get a transmission fixed at a dealer when the car is out of warranty (?). He then took me up on my offer. Unfortunately, w/o access to a vehicle with a hitch that could take a tow bar, we had to tow it back using a tow rope, which you can't do on the interstate, so it required taking the backroads. So the normal 3 hour drive took 5 hours, all country road's, and killed an entire Saturday for the whole operation.

The wife get's angry that I try to help out everyone that asks, and especially with helping people with computer issues. I don't ask for money, as most are my friends or family. Even when offered money, I refuse to take it. (There had been a couple of times when I did accept it because I was totally broke and the person kept insisting and insisting.) I did try to adopt a new policy where I refuse once, and if the person insists once, I then accept, but that didn't go anywhere. It just feels akward, as this in NOT my business.

It has nothing to do with it making me feel good about myself, it's more that if I don't, I feel bad that I didn't help, because I can.

And to complicate the matter, I almost always refuse help from people that offer to help me with something, even if it's 'not my thing'. Like the drywall job in my bathroom I just totally screwed up. My brother-in- law offered to just do it for me, not help me do it, as I've helped him out countless times with computer issues, and he's a union professional at that stuff. But I couldn't bring myself to accept his help until it was to late and it needed to be re-done.

When I was younger, I didn't really believe in karma, but I do now. By the same token, I NEVER help out expecting any kind of payback down the road, that just happens on it's own. I wish I could get my teenage son to realize that.

So the answer to the question is just, because I can help.

Regards,

DanS

Hi,

I understand that the intentions are benign, but at the same time the OP might want to proceed with caution when offering help to someone that isn't asking for it -- at least with something computer security related. (If I saw someone driving with a flat, I'd tell them as thats a potentialy hazardous situation to life and limb.) People can be funny in that regard. The person with the open wireless network might not take too kindly to someone dumping text to a printer.

The guy that went beserk when approached about his open network definetly jumped into over-paranoia. I'm willing to speculate that those with less knowledge are more inclined to react as he did than those with knowledge. I know if I were approached, my reaction would definetly be in kind and friendly. (I'd probably invite the person in for a beer/coffee and a BS session.)

As for usenet, folks are asking for help to questions -- so can't really see a parallel. I'd just let the person with the open network be. If they haven't bothered educating themselves to propery configure their networks and someone ends up trashing their systems, then, well -- experience is a good teacher.

Just my random musings that aren't worth a whole lot.. :^)

Cheers!

-ES