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So I'm in the backyard with my new toy (laptop with wireless) and I pick up another wireless network in the area and the lappy jumps on that network since its signal was stronger than my WAP coming out of the house. Being the nice guy I am I went ahead and checked out their network to see what was open. Luckily, the guy has nothing shared except for two printers and the default share files on his computers, no files in them.

Rather than walk to each house asking who had the wireless network I went ahead and installed one of his shared printers and printed a little note to him:

Your network is not secure, come see me and maybe I can help you fix it.............

I hit print and bamn, five minutes later a guy is at my door with this look like I'm from another planet, "How in the world did you do that?" he asks me. He said it really freaked him out, he's playing a computer game and the printer starts printing, on it's own as far as he knows.

I explain how it works, how his WAP is wide open and he needs to lock it down, someone smarter than me could sniff his traffic and see everything he is doing.

I think I'm going to drive around my housing unit tonight and see who else is running open, right after I double check my system to make sure it is locked down.

glass

Another WAR Driver is born.....

LMAO too funny!!! I can just see the look on the guys face when he is busy playing a game and his printer starts up. LMAO

well, that was nice of you, I have been a dick about that.

I have messed with 3 routers now that I can see around me......

you broke the law you lucky he didnt call the cops

one of my friends got busted
they nailed him for "theft of services", "criminal trespass" "electronic tampering" and "invasion of privacy" luckily the guy didnt press charges and the judge let it go since he was trying to "help the guy"

he was caught in the car connecting to this guys network

Yup, it's a double edged sword - you can open yourself to litigation. I'm tempted to do the same thing with businesses when I find open networks when I'm on a job. Safer to just run Netstumbler and then show them that you picked up their network and it wasn't running WEP.

Not as dramatic, I grant you.

Maybe they should change the law and start fining people for being a dumb a$$ and leaving their network wide open

it would be simple enough if wireless routers required encryption automatically, etc rather than defaulting to wide-open mode out of the box. simple wizard in the setup and done. that would save the non-techies from not knowing about it...and also prevent alot of issues such as this.

.02

haha, you said wizard.

Greg

You know, I had not even thought about the legal aspect of it. I guess I could turn around and sue him, his network encroaches into my yard, forcing my laptop to jump on it since it's signal is stonger...hmmmmm..

Seriously though, I've got free legal, so does he, it would only be a waste of our time.

The guy needs a hand, that's for sure, I've told him 4 times how to setup IP filtering on the router and explained how to setup up WEP (I Know, many don't consider WEP that secure but it's something) twice. I will eventually have to go over and do it for him.

Glass