Wifi Security

Mon Nov 21 15:01:06 UTC 2005

--- "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick at ianai.net> wrote:

> 
> On Nov 21, 2005, at 9:42 AM, Ross Hosman wrote:
> 
> > So my question is pretty simple. You have all
> these major companies  
> > such
> > as google/earthlink/sprint/etc. building wifi
> networks. Lets say I  
> > want
> > to collect peoples information so I setup an AP
> with the same ssid as
> > google's ap so people connect to it and I log all
> of their traffic.  
> > Most
> > people won't check beyond the ssid to look at the
> mac address but even
> > that could be spoofed. Is there anyway to verify a
> certain ap beyond
> > mac/ssid, will there be in the future? How do
> these companies plan to
> > mitigate this threat or are they just going to
> hope consumers are  
> > smart
> > enough to figure it out?
> 
> Why would you even need to set up an AP?  Why not
> just sit and sniff  
> traffic?  Gets you the _exact_ same information.
> 
> And why worry about Google, etc., when Starbucks and
> airports have  
> been doing this for _years_?
> 
> Lastly, most consumers are smart enough to know to
> use encryption  
> (the little pad-lock in their browser).  Some
> aren't.  Changing the  
> WiFi architecture is not going to save those who
> aren't.
> 

> -- 
> TTFN,
> patrick

I have to disagree that most consumers are smart
enough to use encryption. Most consumers are dumb as a
brick when it comes to the internet and especially
security. Take a look at the average AOL user and
you'll see what I'm saying.

Starbucks and t-mobile is a little bit different as
these networks aren't concentrated. As we companies
start covering entire cities I believe you could start
seeing this as becoming a regular problem.

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