am i stealing internet?

Question

i have a HP pavillion labtop using intel centrino mobile technolagy thats supposed to intercept my DSL from a linksys wireless-G router. when i connect from my bedroom, the connection comes from 'sarfraz's comcast'. the wierd thing about the message is that i dont have comcast.   sometimes i connect to 'sarfraz's comcast' and sometimes i connect to my regular linksys. its sorta funny cause comcast is faster than my DSL so im kinda getting a better connection for free :smileyvery-happy:

NemesisDB · Answer

yes ... it's called theft of utilities (just like stealing your neighbor's cable tv would be).  don't do it

volcano11 · Answer

red-violin,

You are able to do this because your neighbor is running an unsecure wireless network. If it were secure, you could not connect to it. It might be helpful to inform your neighbor that his/her network is totally open to the world and it would be in his/her best interest to secure their network, not only to prevent others from using the internet connection, but also to prevent malicious persons from stealing personal information off their computers. The reason that the connection is faster is probably because the comcast system is cable internet which is faster than dsl.

Steve

scottlarockman · Answer

There is an issue with using your neighbors wireless, and it probably isn't a big issue, but in the corporate world it is. Windows will connect to any access point you've connected to before. So for instance if you've connected to "linksys" before, well then if I had a linksys access point I could force you into connecting to my access point because windows would find it and connect to it. MS wasn't smart enough to make people say "connect to such and such access point" and then allow connections in the future to that Access Point with THAT MAC address only. So anyways, when I have you connect to my rogue wireless access point, I can sniff your traffic, act as your dns server, point you to MY servers and steal your emails and many other bits of unencrypted traffic and passwords. However, if you aren't concerned with this, I think connecting to your neighbors wireless router is more of an accident than anything else, you didn't know any better :D Free Spyware Removal

Message Edited by scottlarockman on 06-28-2005 06:08 PM

Message Edited by scottlarockman on 06-28-2005 06:16 PM

boppo · Answer

at my apartment I am seeing 3 unsecured wireless networks on my laptop. folks just don't know how to set them up.

scottlarockman · Answer

That or they do it wrong, like very very weak keys.  Anything less than about 30 characters in WPA is weaker than WEP and of course WEP can be cracked in like 10 minutes in many cases.

NemesisDB · Answer

I don't know if I'd say it's weaker than WEP.  Vulnerable to dictionary attacks (assuming it's a word combo -- 10 random letters would still take significant time), yes ... but like you said, there are some very automated programs out there that will let even idiots crack WEP.

scottlarockman · Answer

yeah, anything that can be found in a dictionary or a dictionary wording combo could be cracked pretty rapidly.

cghost · Answer

Scott, I don't understand your 6/28 post. Are you saying because red_violin accessed his neighbor's system, that the neighbor now has an open backtrack into red_violin's system?

scottlarockman · Answer

As long as you are using someone elses internet, there are certainly issues.  They can sniff all of your traffic, (any unencrypted traffic).  Since they have control of your DNS they can then force you to use any system they want for just about any site you attempt to visit.  For instance, let's say you do a look up on mail.myserver.com.  Well typically mail.myserver.com would resolve to 203.90.44.12 (made this up) when you do the look up against their DNS server, they could have it resolve to ANYTHING they want, for instance 192.168.0.102 (one of their machines which they could then log all email)  All of this very unlikely, though completely possible.  Also new story, though when you are sitting in a car in front of someones house it is much more difficult for you to claim 'accident'.  Spyware Removal   http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/04/State/Wi_Fi_cloaks_a_new_br.shtml Message Edited by scottlarockman on 07-07-2005 01:41 PM

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

am i stealing internet?

Was this post helpful?