Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house

Jay Ashworth jra at baylink.com
Thu Dec 11 17:54:09 UTC 2014


----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Helms" <khelms at zcorum.com>

> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said:
> > > I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last
> > > year;
> > > their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot
> > > I've
> > > used since.
> >
> > Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard.
> > Shared-secret
> > authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret
> > auth.
> >
> > I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac
> > address....

> It's very scary, and something I'm doing a paper on. It _is_ just MAC
> recognition, at least until you try and use a MAC address that's
> already active somewhere else.

MAC cloning isn't all *that* common, at least not for that usage.

The fact that it is *possible* provides some nice cover in certain
circumstances, I would guess.

As for "something else on my laptop", I'm not sure what else they could
see; I'd be surprised if they could get anything to run on SuSE 12.2. :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates       http://www.bcp38.info          2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA      BCP38: Ask For It By Name!           +1 727 647 1274



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