Why lockdown your wifi?

soop · 06-07-04, 08:45 AM

Ok, sure I'm a conservative socialist. I'll admit it ...

But I think its high time, we started taking the internet back :)

I've never understood why people "encrypt" there wifi access. Why not allow public use? so someone strolling your neighbourhood uses your wap to check his e-mail, or test his pda's wifi. Whats the big deal? Free the bandwidth up ... I've got both my waps open and just block everything from the wap in to my network. But hey if you want to surf the internet go right ahead. More people should do the same. Why can't your neighbour piggy back?

Leave your WIFI open!!!

Anyone else agree with this concept? Sure there might be some people going "oh deary me... what if someone surfs porn from my connection" ... well if someone stabs someone with your kitchen knife are you stabbing them as well? Don't think so ...

My SSID is BE_Nice_Its_Free .... so why not everyone else?

*note* It could lead to a digital revolution ... hell bandwidth companies and ISP's are charging us for a service with no over head really ... Ok yes there is, but I'm willing to bet aside from "router upgrades" most of the equipment was paid for about 5 years ago.

Ok well thats my $.02 and I probably over paid.

Anyways you get the idea

Soop out ...

Enjoy

pcdoctorca · 06-07-04, 09:04 AM

Because bandwidth is not free. A lot of ISPs are monitoring bandwidth usage and instituting caps. we pay a ridiculously small amount of money for the amount of bandwidth I receive. OTOH, if everybody was to max out their bandwidth, ISPs would have no choice but to a) reduce bandwidth or b) increase prices.

It's doubtful that the equipment was paid '5 years ago'. 5 year old equipment is due to be replaced, you've got maintenance costs, staff costs, bandwidth costs, infrastructure maintenance costs. Overhead is NOT minimal.

Scoff at it all you want, I would not like to see the cops seize my gear because someone's been pedling child porn or hate lit of my IP address.

Howard2k · 06-07-04, 09:14 AM

I'm divided. I lock mine down but I had considered putting together a shared infrastructure.

The biggest issues are security and improper use.

Firstly - There was a guy recently arrested in Toronto sitting in his car with his pants down surfing kiddie porn. I don't want that happening outside of my house.

Secondly - you need to ensure that if you do leave it open you're not risking the security of your internal PCs. If you have them natively surfing on the same subnet that's not good.

Finally - why SHOULD the Internet be free everywhere? Why should I assume that just because someone is subscribing to the Internet they should share it with me? If someone is driving in the direction I want to go in should they be morally obligated to give me a ride? I'm just a passenger, the cost difference is virtually nil....

Bike_ham · 06-07-04, 09:19 AM

I would like to give away some of my monthly bytes, but only if I had enough to give away - perhaps a pre-set limit?

Currently I make a good effort to use up 2Gb

cwsmith68 · 06-07-04, 09:29 AM

When I first got my WiFi setup about a year and a half ago, I was living in a townhouse development. WiFi was still a little new then, but there was at least one other house that had it. I am pretty sure that it was a group of college students sharing a place. Anyway, their entire network was there for the browsing, including several gig of a porn collection. So I wrote an anonymous little paragraph about WiFi encryption and that it might be a good idea, and printed it…to their printer. I know they got the message, because they replied by renaming their SSID to some derogatory remark, but it was encrypted!

As a long time government employee, network security has been drilled into my head for years. While I may agree with your views about the Internet for the community, I certainly think my former neighbors weren’t being very smart.

Personally, I pay for the cable Internet access, and I want the bandwidth available when my family or I need it. I don’t feel the need to share that any more than I would let other people picnic in my front yard. I now live in a house, in a much higher traffic area (right next to a mall), so I don’t plan on giving any college student with a knack for hacking any reason to try to get into my stuff (no offense to college students in general, I was one once). I use WEP (I am running an 11b router, so that is the highest encryption I can use) and I use IP filtering both on the router and on a separate firewall on my PC.

soop · 06-07-04, 10:00 AM

heheh yes I remember that man getting caught with his pants down ;) ... that will always happen.

And in regards to the ride, I routinely pick up hitchikers (having grown up using it as an actual routine method of transportation) .. plus I'm always half tempted to swing by the bus stops on the route im taking and offer people rides.

If they're going the same way shouldn't we?

And on another note ... in cuba, all government vehicles must stop for passengers "Hitching"

*shrug*

And to the people claiming "I want the bandwidth when I need the bandwidth" ... well knock those people off then at that point ;)

wmcjhi · 06-07-04, 12:45 PM

My neighbor has an unprotected network and I have an x30 w/ wifi. I also have 56k at home w/ no intention to upgrade. I don't routinely use his wifi, only when I want to be on the net for 1-10 minutes and don't feel like turning my comp on to get on our internet, it's nice to be able to just turn the ax on, check my email, then turn it off all while watching tv. I have no intent to hack his network nor browse any inappropriate/malicious websites. Unfortunately, not everyone does the same.

MrKlaatu · 06-07-04, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by soop
heheh yes I remember that man getting caught with his pants down ... that will always happen.

The subscriber who's bandwidth he was surfing on was certainly lucky they caught the real culprit.

If by chance he had skipped before they caught him and a trace by the feds ended up at the subscribers' "door"......guess who would have been charged?

Mine is definitely "Locked Down".

(Just so's you know, though...........Nuns have fairly good access in Vatican City).

06-07-04, 01:21 PM

Here's my 2 cents:

Does this mean that we should let others tap into our cable lines? I pay for my Broadband, and I'm not going to let any Tom, Dick, and Harry feed off of it. It just takes one malicious,or in the Toronto case, deviant person to make a mess out of things.

If one sets up a Wireless router with no PC's attached ,and wants to share it out, that's one thing. I don't believe this is a wise decision. But if, as Howard2k mentioned, you have a home network on the same subnet that the public would be surfing, forget it!! That would be asking for trouble.

The bottom line is security and possible legal issues, not to mention drawing attention to myself for excessive bandwidth utilization.

06-07-04, 01:40 PM

I lock mine down, tight. My router won't even talk to anything but my X3i and my laptop.

I don't won't people that I don't know surfing with my IP address on a cable connection that I pay for.

06-07-04, 04:33 PM

I have to say my main reasons not to let others on my internet connection are:

i dont need people using my broadband that i have to pay a premium for.

i dont want people on the net with my ip so anything they do gets tracked back to me

i dont want to have people near my network even if it is "locked from the wifi" ( security is a big problem and even though you may think you are safe, there are usually ways to get around things)

and of course the whole bandwidth thing, if people want to use my internet (take nieghbors for example) they can pay a small amount to cover my expenses and time to setup and maintain the service.

i think free wifi hotspots are great but remember, most free hotspots use advertsing to cover expenses, i dont think some big company like maybe bestbuy is going to pay me to advertise on my open hotspot at my house :D

i have 3 wifi aps in my house (dont ask why, :)) and 2 are open and one is secured. but the two open ones dont get good enough range ( so if someone was on my network they would have to be in my yard by my window) and the one that has the better range is secured so people cant get onto it.

i really think its your own choice. if you want to provide free access and try and keep yourself secure from people using it go ahead, your the one paying for the internet so you should be able to decide. But if you choose not to share your internet the same applies, your paying for your connection so you can choose not to share it with others.

i would recommend using some type of firewall/router box in between your wireless access point and network/computer if you do decide to open up your wireless

you probably would be surprised at how many wardrivers there are out there, and with long range antennas selling for 50$ or less ( see here: http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/s...sp?T1=202+5697 ) just about anyone can get the tools to go out and "do a little damage"