Got my computer of of wireless router!

[cdaiscool]

Agreed 100%. All stuff that slows them down - not keep 'em out.

I'm going to U of M next week as a network analyst. So I may be coming to you for some advice...

BTW, WPA is just Wi-Fi Protected Access. Security is like an onion - you want many layers. Each one you peel back gets you closer to what you want, but should make the attacker want to just leave.

My SSIDs here are FBI_SECURE and Nobodys_Home. The PSK for FBI is an anagram for Lulzsec, Anon, and one of their targets.

Motorcycle related? Umm, next time I hack into a wireless network I'll change the SSID to 'CB7504LIFE'. Deal?

[Lucky 1]

The reason a printer says paper jam when you see no paper is that little pieces of Fibers of paper accumulate in the rollers and the sensors pick that up.
What it should say, is CLEAN YOUR PRINTER>

[cdaiscool]

Lucky 1 wrote

The reason a printer says paper jam when you see no paper is that little pieces of Fibers of paper accumulate in the rollers and the sensors pick that up.
What it should say, is CLEAN YOUR PRINTER>

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/quotes?qt=qt1497062

[samir_nayanajaad]

This guy gets it. One of the all time great comedies.

[Half-Caf]

Hey, guess what? There is now wi-fi blocking wallpaper! hahaha...


I saw it and thought of this thread. Read on if you're interested.

[shinyribs]

I'm curious,but what difference does it make of someone steals your wi-fi? I mean,they are only getting access to the internet,right? Not your personal info or anything like that. I guess I  just don't get it. I mean,you are the adult and actually PAY for your internet,and then your neighbor goes and steals it...yeah,that sucks,but I'm not gonna pay through the nose with fancy wall coverings to prevent it.

[rrgunslinger]

If they do something bad they would trace it back to you and you could have the CIA knocking at your door.  Just password you router.  This did happen here in West Palm Florida.  Some guy on a boat was down loading kitty porn over another persons router.  They came in and took all the guys equipment and arrested him.  When they realized it wasn't him they let him go and did get the person who was responsible. His boat was over a mile away!
Plus the more people on your connection the slower you are.  And it's still stealing.

[LukeM]

One more thing to mention: if someone access your Wi-Fi network, they have access to all the machines on that network.  This may allow them to load trojans or bot programs on your machines without your notice.  Recovery from this can be time consuming and expensive. The people running botnets can be very unforgiving.

Caveat emptor.

MC content:  This weekend I'm swapping out the factory exhaust on the Avenger with a pair of Sportster mufflers.  Should be a fun project.

Luke M

[shinyribs]

I understand it's stealing and that is definitely not cool.

I didn't know about the tracing part.Scary

[cdaiscool]

They also get all the traffic that goes between your computer and your router. So if you're banking, and put in your password in a non-https site, then your password can be seen. So, say, you go to FB and log in, and I'm on your network sniffing traffic, then I have your login credentials.

Banks usually are safe, as they use https, which establishes a secure connection between your computer and their servers. So they still get the password, but it's encrypted and not easily broken.

[Dw07u]

Getting your wifi stolen can also mean you get your bandwidth stolen, which means you can get capped early in the month leaving you with no internet access, but then again, you ppl probably don't know what capped internet is like... South Africa, is still running on largely capped internet, just means you are limited to a certain amount of traffic, I have uncapped though... but paying through my arse...

Or do you have capped internet there? Please share...

As for security... putting up a nice strong password with WPA/WPA2 should be more than enough to keep a hacker from going for your connection... unless there is no other easy targets around and he lives right next to you... but generally they will go for the easiest targets... also. changing your password regularly is highly recommended....

I did my Comptia N+ certificate back in 2010 and attempted to get a Cisco CCNA certificate too, but I was 10% away from the required score... sucks...

But Now I'm not in IT anymore, and to tell you the truth, it is lovely to not be involved in networks and stuff anymore...

Glad I did not spend too much money on studying IT... But it's good to know what I know now, helps run the household network

[Lucky 1]

I will explain.

There are wireless networks for internet in your community.
A certain amount of channels on your network for people to use.
The more people that use the network and channels  the slower you computer will get.

In my case  someone was using my channel BUT they were using 100% of the available
bandwidth 24/7!!!

My computer would hardly even work.
After 4 days of trying many remedies my ISP explained to
 me what was going on and gave me
4 choices of what I could do. They all cost money,
 but getting rid of the wireless solved the problem for good.

I should have had it hard wired from the very start.
I was just too lazy to string the wire and drill the holes.

[Lucky 1]

What is a botnet?  I was wondering how they could use 100% bandwidth ( 6 gigabytes) 24/7 ?

Thats what my ISP told me was going on.

[cdaiscool]

A botnet is an inter-connected network of computers et el, that can all be commanted from a command-and-control machine.

Think of it like an army. Each machine that's part of a botnet is a soldier. And these soldiers are much better than America's Army - they don't eat, sleep, rest, or anything. You feed them, not the General. The General gives them orders. You give them electricity and bandwidth.

A VERY common use for 'em is a DDoS attack - Distributed Denial-of-Service. No matter what the machine is, it's got limits. Bandwidth limits, simultaneous connections limits, etc. A DoS attack tries to fill these limits. There are ways to detect when a machine is trying to make too many connections, and the way to prevent that is to simply drop the request, not let it happen. So, say, the FBI homepage is set to allow 20 simultaneous connections from your IP address. This way, your family can all be perusing the hottest new wanted posters without getting booted. But, if you have a 21st person trying to connect, and everyone connects at the same time, the FBI says nope, and that 21st person will get errors.

That's how they stopped DOS attacks at first. So hackers then said 'fine, if you're blocking from ONE IP address, how about multiple?'. They came up with botnets to then all connect back to the FBI page. So if they can handle 100 simultaneous connections, and they block after 20, then the hacker needs 5 machines to take it down.

Alternatively, they can saturate the bandwidth. If they have a 100 MB connection into their web site, and each machine in a botnet has access to a 10 MB connection, then it will take 10 machines to fill up the site's bandwidth. This is alternative to the taking all the connections.

LOiC (Low Orbital Ion Cannon) is a very well-known botnet. It sends off a LOT of packet requests to take down very famous web sites. FBI, MPAA, RIAA, they all went down simultaneously when Megavideo was removed. All because of LOiC.

Other uses for a Botnet is to crack an encrypted password. Say you have a password, that with your current processor will take 1 year to crack, going through the entire word list. Well, if you farm out the work to 365 machines that all have the same processor speeds, then theoretically it will only take 1 day now. MUCH better than a year.

[cdaiscool]

Since this thread is about wireless and security, I thought this would come in to some good use here:

http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/wifi-pineapple-an-appliance-t.html

Meaning... this thing will mess with a LOT of people. Or nab stuff out of the air, once you're on their network. And it's got the tools (or getting them) to get into a secured, WPA2 network. It takes 5 minutes. Ask me how I know...

[Lucky 1]

IF you are streaming data at only 1255 bites per second and you get multiple users you may only be getting data at 150 BPS.

[Lucky 1]

You are very smart. Maybe too smart?