I hope everyone here has strong encryption on their wireless routers

And uses serious firewall protection on their cable modems. I know most people do not. In fact I can see 3 of my neighbors' WLANs and I'm pretty sure they aren't protected.

Just think of NSA white vans driving around with computers that are sniffing your internet traffic. :scary:

Since they can easily get a pen and trace wiretap from your ISP, why bother with a brute force attack anyway?

Do you have computer science expertise? On a static site that doesn't rotate keys, they may be able to break it given enough computation power, but certainly not in a mobile unit and not without some idea of the content being encrpyted (granted that wouldn't be hard on most people's home WLANs). And even then, it depends on the bit-strength of the encryption... at 2048 bit encryption it can be pretty damn physically impossible to break.

encryption?! Maybe I'm behind the times, but all I know is that they use those huge supercomputers of theirs to break strong encryption. And if you've seen one of those trailers with all those antennas on top, they probably have a means for piping the data stream directly to the supercomputer.

Also, I wouldn't be at all surprised if manufacturers or software providers have built-in back doors. Isn't this even documented somewhere about Microsoft?

overseas persons found two keys (back doors)... one was if memory serves labeled NSA... the other I don't know.

WEP isn't (see my post below) The problem is, there are a lot of people who (incorrectly) think WEP = Strong. Those people are wrong.

Bad security measures are worse than no security measures at all, because someone who thinks they're secure will drop their guard.

Last week I tied in the NetOptics ethernet tap into the Wireless 3G network, The previous week I tied in 8 DS-1's into some Calea boxes. It not much effort for them. Encrypt all you want, it has be decrypted when it hits the network taps. Now if you want to use a ST-III set, it might take 5 minutes or so to grab the key.

If you think I am a threat for upholding the Constitution - GO FOR IT!

all bets are off when they start getting pissy about our rights.

is a tremendous threat to national security.:rofl:

with the patriot act can't they go right to the service providers and see what everyone is checking out?

I also have nothing to hide

Is the teenagers in the Ford Festivas.

for the rest of us?

looking for unsecured wireless connections, then making mischief using those connections. It's called "wardriving".

And that is the real threat

Do you think that commerically available encryption and firewalls will stop the NSA from snooping in your computer?

UP AGAINST THE WALL AGENT MIKE

Having a bit of flashback to the 70s - I wasn't scared then & I'm not intimidated now.

One thing to point out: if you think you're protected because you're using WEP, you're not. The WEP encryption scheme is completely useless due to a well-publicized vulnerability in the key-exchange mechanism. It has been demonstrated that WEP can be broken in as little as 3 minutes using using automated freely-downloadable tools.

WPA, the other encryption scheme implemented in commercially-available wireless LAN gear, also has it's problems, as detailed here: http://www.drizzle.com/~aboba/IEEE/

802.11i is better, but it's not widely implemented yet - you can't go to WorstBuy and get a wireless access point that supports it, for example.

(I do information security for a living, FWIW)

64 byte pass key plus rotating encryption keys.

But, Grandma can't set that up. The problem with most security measures is that it assumes a certain degree of nerdiness to get it working.

but I said no way and went through the trouble of stringing CAT5 cable. 1000ft/$29, connectors 20-$3.95, crimping tool $6.95. Was worth it to me. I wasn't worried about the G-men but the kiddies driving around looking for hot-spots.

100MB max theoretical speed as opposed to 54mb for wireless, under perfect conditions.

The problem with do-it-yourself Cat 5 installation is that it's pretty easy to screw it up - like running it parallel to a flourescent light ballast, for example. And, even under those circumstances, it'll still work, but you'll be sitting there wondering why it's so effing slow.

G is what, 50-100 megabit? Plus latency and added overhead for the transmission protocols, and constant retransmission errors due to interference? Wireless is easier for some locations, and it's a MUST if you have a laptop, but good old Cat-5 is still the best solution for desktop PC networks where performance is important. Wireless is only a valid option when convenience is more important that performance (it's funny how the ads fail to mention that).

FWIW, my house has both. My two desktops are hardwired to my DSL line with gigabit ethernet between them for gaming. I also have an 11b network running for my laptop...I used to have Cat5 strung all over my house so I could plug it in anywhere. My wireless lan allowed me to get rid of four mini-hubs and hundreds of feet of cable.

Believe it or not, there are less than 30 transcontinental fiber-cables in the United States responsible for carrying 100% of our Internet traffic. The NSA would never bother wardriving to look for millions of unknown WLAN's, when they can simply tap those backbones and monitor EVERYONE at once. If they only want to intercept traffic entering and leaving the country, it's far simpler...there's only about a dozen international connections, and the last time I checked they all routed through FIVE switching centers. Monitoring those centers would be childs play.

The Internet was never designed to be spy proof, and is amazingly easy to monitor if you have the resources to get it done. The main stumbling block to monitoring Internet traffic is the sheer volume of it and the massive amount of computing power that monitoring a network this size would require. We're talking about the NSA though, so they're one of the few agencies in the world that actually have the technology to do it.

Since I live in an apartment complex. I do not want the neighbors stealing my bandwidth.

using the yellow LAN cable through the box only.

with half their highly parallel distributed processing supercomputers tied behind their backs...

:hide: :hide:

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

...and it's attached to a blue zone that's throttled to like 6k or something absurd. And it goes through a proxy that reports everything and has some nifty countermeasure routines. I have no problem with people "stealing my bandwidth" as long as they realize I'll be watching everything they do...very slowly...