Unknown Wireless Access Point??? 1

[sera]

My mother owns a coffee shop called the College Market. We do not offer wireless access, nor do we have it for the store. My boyfriend and I were sitting outside of the store in my truck and he saw a wireless access point called collegemkt. It is encrypted. We also had a customer who was sitting in the store come up and ask us if we had wireless available because she also saw it with her laptop. What could be causing this? No one knows....There is a credit card machine, that I believe relies on the phone line and a video game machine that could have wireless but doubtful. Any ideas?


Sera
I often believe that...
My computer is possessed!

 

[bluedragon2]

Read the story:

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/7438

Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[sera]

You know I just remembered...we don't accept credit cards anymore so it couldn't be the credit card machine. Well I just found the culprit. The next door neighbor...why he named his wireless after the store I don't know...
I am not really sure how the article applies. I am not war driving...nor war parking.



Sera
I often believe that...
My computer is possessed!

 

[sera]

Well I can't say I have never been war driving...but I wasn't at the time. I have done it as an exercise in security for school. Not only that but that article frustrates me
"We don't agree with this kind of behavior at all, but it's understandable to some point. It just goes to show a certain amount of immaturity."

I don't agree with the wireless company providing service without educating their customers about encryption, or automatically enabling encryption. I think that shows an even greater amout of immaturity.



Sera
I often believe that...
My computer is possessed!

 

[bluedragon2]

I just posted the article because it pertained to wireless networks and the ability to connect even if you wern't meaning to. Was just a little info for you suggesting that someone around you probably had a wireless going. Didn't notice it was the same name as your shop.



Blue

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[sera]

well ok...that is about what I got out of the article. I appreciate you responding and pointing me to that article. It was interesting and frustrating all at the same time as you saw by my post. It will probably stop me from ever war driving again because of the misconception someone would have of what I am doing and also because of the penalties associated. But the individuals in the article were up to no good and they deserve what they got!

Thank You

Sera
I often believe that...
My computer is possessed!

 

[ReddLefty]

Although the article is nice to read, only the last section shows why they were so easily hackable... they didn't turn on their WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol). They were basically transmitting in clear text! The common problem with the wireless is that people don't take the time to configure them properly and leave the working defaults. The default has WEP off.

What your seeing in your coffee shop is someone else's wireless network not too far away. Your store just happens to be in range of that wireless router/network. Someone coming into your coffee shop thinking your like Starbucks will try to attach to it, but it's not yours to begin with. Starbucks don't use WEP because they WANT people to log into their network....... and that started a new wave of places to do bad things.... The wireless WEPless networks will make it even harder to find hackers as they just stop at any Starbucks, log in, hack away for an hour, shutdown and leave.... for the cost of 2.95$ for a café latté. By the time anyone notices, the hacker is at his next wireless WEPless network...



"In space, nobody can hear you click..."

 

[sera]

Well this access was encrypted. I really don't know why he chose to name his access point the same as the business, but I was told that is because it is the closest landmark to his house. Interesting point about starbucks tho....very interesting...never thought about that!



Sera
I often believe that...
My computer is possessed!

 

[lullysing]

There are cracks available to break in encrypted nodes because of vulnerabilities in the encryption algorhytm ( WAP if i remember right).

Don't take my word for it, but i do think given sufficient bannanas, this can be a solvable problem.

_____________________________
when someone asks for your username and password, and much *clickely clickely* is happening in the background, know enough that you should be worried.