Rhobite
Premium
join:2002-02-24
Cambridge, MA
clubs:
| reply to Mark Rejhon
Re: I've always wanted to paper my bay window ....
I agree. You have to pump a good deal of traffic through your AP in order to have your WEP broken by a passive attacker. But - a lot of people use their wireless connections a lot. I transfer files between my laptop and my desktop, frequently several GB at a time. That's easily enough for someone to break my WEP. Now the likelihood of someone sitting in my driveway sniffing my traffic is low, especially since there are about 25 unprotected APs within a block from me. But I still try to change the key sometimes. Unfortunately WPA won't work on my garbage Netgear card (WG511).
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Jimmysquid.com - I take pictures. |
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Mark Rejhon
join:2004-02-02
Ottawa, ON
 ·Magma Communications
4 edits | reply to jap
Hi,
There's not enough traffic on my WLAN to break through my WEP in less than 3, probably not even less than 12 months. The password changes more often than that  I never do Internet downloads on my WiFi laptop, just as an occasional cordless surfing/email station.
WEP is not perfect -- but it's actually much safer than you think for home networks on modern access points (2003, 2004). However, if you run file sharing on a wireless computer (KaZaA, for example) then you're much unsafer, since there'll be lots more packets flying around. You need to continually monitor a network for a long time to crack the password, catching vast numbers of packets, in order to get enough information to crack the code.
Maybe in corporate espionage and stuff like that where a secret WEP cracking machine is hidden near a worksite for months... Or some kind of really high tech thief putting a hidden machine near a rich house. There's too many easier targets for them to go after. It's far easier to get your online banking password through many other means, to crack a WEP network. |
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jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
 ·RoadRunner Cable
1 edit | reply to Rhobite
said by Rhobite  :
Because WEP is always insecure. True it's better than nothing, but anyone can sniff a bunch of WEP traffic and figure out the key. WEP doesn't protect you frm a determined attacker.
Shit. I was *so* wrong & I stand corrected. Big apologies to dslknowitall: I bow down and grovel for your forgiveness. And thanks to Rhobite for the clue. I was totally foot-in-mouth with my snide (1)-(5) hypothetical of what's required to break-in ... especially on 802.11x APs that pre-date mid-2003 (like mine) which is when manufacturers began to ship better key handling. There are no shortage of googlable whitepapers on the topic, but this Rutgers HowTo is an easy read & decent intro & over here is a 2yr old paper but well writ & delves into details.
Again, my bad for believing the claims on my Nortel AP. The industry screwed up big time on the WEP key management and then again on loose keygen tolerances for WPA.
Edit: All of which still leaves this wallpaper product looking equally silly, but I learned a thing or two about wifi security.  |
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Rhobite
Premium
join:2002-02-24
Cambridge, MA
clubs:
| reply to jap
Because WEP is always insecure. True it's better than nothing, but anyone can sniff a bunch of WEP traffic and figure out the key. WEP doesn't protect you frm a determined attacker.
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Jimmysquid.com - I take pictures. |
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