Wireless security, I want the real story

Are you being stubborn or something? If you don't want to use WEP don't use it. I dont see how this scenario is so far fetched...

Why dont you take wep off, take down your firewall, uninstall your antivirus, post your public IP on this forum and run a cable from your switch out to the street with your name and SSN stuck to it.

lol sorry i went off on a rant there.
 
Quiltface said:
Are you being stubborn or something? If you don't want to use WEP don't use it. I dont see how this scenario is so far fetched...
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You must have missed the post where I said I enabled security on my network today.

I'm just saying that I don't buy into hysteria. It's just a little too "Chicken Little" for me.

It's clearly more exciting to be paranoid about all your neighbors being child pornographers, and a police force with so many resources available that they chase down people based on IP addresses alone. It's that same sort of over-paranoid hype that led an entire nation on a goose chase for weapons of mass destruction several years ago. :D
 
its not that they don't have the technology to tell the difference. its that they will be knocking on your door 1st. you explain it. you prove it. they don't have to. you do. its about deep pockets also. it won't be free. figure it out.

enough said, I'm done with this post.
 
No I read the post when you said it so thats why I was kind of confused about it.... so you seriously have no idea that you can get tracked down to your front door with your IP address? Well you can... Im with you tremmor Im done with this post.
 
tremmor said:
its not that they don't have the technology to tell the difference. its that they will be knocking on your door 1st. you explain it. you prove it. they don't have to. you do. its about deep pockets also. it won't be free. figure it out.

enough said, I'm done with this post.
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Actually, no. Not since this.

I would think that the existance of Dynamic Identifiers, Network Masquerading, Native Address Translation and IP Masquerading pretty much makes chasing IP addresses a waste of time.
 
tremmor said:
change my mind.
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I'm not really interested in changing your mind.

I'm just saying that I'd be interested to see some evidence that anyone has ever been arrested, prosecuted or convicted because their neighbor used their network to do something illegal.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just doubt it's much more than urban legend. I could be wrong.
 
It's illegal for someone else to use your network. Its called piggy-backing. Here.
He wasn't even doing anything illegal. There probably have been people arrested for doing illegal stuff but it wasn't shown all over the internet.

Wait, are you even talking about that anymore? I didn't read any posts.
 
Ok I havent read all this thread only the first page but here is my 2 cents on why you should ALWAYS secure your wireless connection.

1 - If someone becomes part of your LAN and goes out via your public IP, then any activity done illegaly will point back to your public IP. It would be very hard, if not impossible to prove someone else was on, and especially who that person was. Therefore your public ip could be used in a DDOS attack, used to look at child porn etc etc, stuff you dont want your ISP to associate you with.

2 - lets say you leave your wireless unsecured OR secure it with WEP which as far as im concerned might aswell be the same thing since wep is so horribly insecure, if someone becomes part of your LAN they have access to your router, providing your using a password of over 7 characters you'll generally be safe from a practical brute force, however if your leaving your network unsecure chances are you've left the password as default or just left it the same. If an attacker gains access to your router they can do several things - a. Change your DNS settings to a poisoned DNS server - all the attacker needs is BIND or some other dns software on their system, point the DNS from your router to use the attackers local ip, all DNS requests will then go through the attackers system, he/she could then easily add bogus records for sites like paypal/ebay etc that are imitations that will drop your details into a database once there entered.
b. Generally screw around with your connection settings, particularly annoying if your on ADSL as they could start changing your VCI values and your ADSL will stop working without you knowing why.

3 - arp poisoning - an attacker could easily identify himself as your gateway peforming a 'man in the middle' attack, he/she could then monitor all traffic coming in and out of your computer. this is obviously something you dont want, while most sites where you login to will use https and therefore your details will be encrypted, everything else is sent over plain text (including most pop/smtp authentication details)

ok theres probably many others but ill leave it at there for now. Personally I think leaving your wireless network open is a very silly thing to do and just asking for trouble!
 
Im surprised someone hasnt meantioned shared folders... One of the best reasons for having a network, you cna map folder to each computer. But there are folders that are shared by default. What does this mean? It means someone ON YOUR network could see this shared drive and drop a virus on it. OR a network virus would upload itself to your computer and destroy data.

I would also make sure your router login has a password on it.
 
Firstly as far as im aware no folder are shared by default on windows xp/vista, if your talking about admin$ and c$ then these restricted to Guest, however by default guest will have an account restriction on preventing this.

Secondly even if someone did get access to any shares they would have to rely on the share permissions being write, and not just read. Even if they were to copy a virus over there is no way of executing it, unless of course they add the file to the startup list.
 
Homenet said:
Firstly as far as im aware no folder are shared by default on windows xp/vista, if your talking about admin$ and c$ then these restricted to Guest, however by default guest will have an account restriction on preventing this.

Secondly even if someone did get access to any shares they would have to rely on the share permissions being write, and not just read. Even if they were to copy a virus over there is no way of executing it, unless of course they add the file to the startup list.
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The Shared Documents folder?
 
Homenet said:
1 - If someone becomes part of your LAN and goes out via your public IP, then any activity done illegaly will point back to your public IP. It would be very hard, if not impossible to prove someone else was on, and especially who that person was. Therefore your public ip could be used in a DDOS attack, used to look at child porn etc etc, stuff you dont want your ISP to associate you with.
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I don’t have a technical background, so I’ll have to take your word on what you have said (in fact, those were the reasons I went ahead an enabled security on my network a few days ago).

However, I just don’t agree with the quote above. Considering that not every ISP runs a static IP system, I can’t believe that Big Brother would base any sort of legal action on this.

I have asked repeatedly if anyone would link up some evidence that the police have ever arrested, prosecuted or convicted someone solely based on their IP being associated with illegal activity. In all the posts that have been made, nobody has ever coughed anything up. I’m not saying I’d be happy to discover that someone was doing something illegal or gross over my network, or that it doesn’t happen to people with unsecured networks. In fact, it’s because that it probably happens all the time that Johnny Law probably does not chase down people through IP addresses. Until someone shows me instances of where this has happened, I’m calling in Computer Urban Legend.
 
jbrown456 said:
The Shared Documents folder?
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Im pretty sure there not shared by default though? correct me if wrong.

Protozoa said:
I don’t have a technical background, so I’ll have to take your word on what you have said (in fact, those were the reasons I went ahead an enabled security on my network a few days ago).

However, I just don’t agree with the quote above. Considering that not every ISP runs a static IP system, I can’t believe that Big Brother would base any sort of legal action on this.

I have asked repeatedly if anyone would link up some evidence that the police have ever arrested, prosecuted or convicted someone solely based on their IP being associated with illegal activity. In all the posts that have been made, nobody has ever coughed anything up. I’m not saying I’d be happy to discover that someone was doing something illegal or gross over my network, or that it doesn’t happen to people with unsecured networks. In fact, it’s because that it probably happens all the time that Johnny Law probably does not chase down people through IP addresses. Until someone shows me instances of where this has happened, I’m calling in Computer Urban Legend.
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Ok fair point, but as for the dynamic based ISP's there is no doubt whatsoever that they know exactly who they have issued their IP addresses to, so they would have no problem seeing who was using that ip at what time.

Not sure if your from the US or the UK but doing a quick google search i found this: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/15391047.html
It says that technically the account holder is responsbible for any activity on the account, so while admitedly it may not lead to prosecution, it could lead to some unwanted police attention (pretty sure the same kind of rule applies here in the UK)

Anyway I think that your personal information is probably more at stake if you leave your wireless wide open, as i mentioned in my earlier post.
 
Homenet said:
Im pretty sure there not shared by default though? correct me if wrong.
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And even if it is, does any document end up there without the user knowing? I have all sorts of files on my computer, documents, pictures, programs.... nothing is in the shared folder.

Homenet said:
Ok fair point, but as for the dynamic based ISP's there is no doubt whatsoever that they know exactly who they have issued their IP addresses to, so they would have no problem seeing who was using that ip at what time.
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Good point, is there any evidence that the cops have ever used the IP addresses (alone) to arrest someone?
 
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