Wireless Access Point

[JohnBullard]

Mine's wide open as well. I've taken my laptop and pocket PC both outside before, and can only connect within about 15 feet from the house.

My wireless access point in is my basement, so range outside is very limited.

I've got several hundred feet to my nearest neighbor, and I know it doesn't go that far, it won't even reach the street in front of my house!

If my home wifi had more range, or I had closer neighbors, then I probably would encrypt, etc.

I've been in Nashville TN for meetings all week, and I agree I'm finding lots of open networks.

My hotel only offers wifi connection, but I'm able to connect not only to my hotel, but some nearby hotels also.

So right now, I using "somebody else's" wide open connection as I type this.

 

[Skibum]

Seems to me it would be a lot easier for a would be n'aer d-well to sit at home, and innocently IM the youngster in "your" home, get your IP address, and hack in from the comfort and anonymity of his lair. The thought of a predator sitting in my driveway for 60 minutes in an attempt to hack into my network.....is absurd..

 

[electron]

Who says he has to sit in your driveway?

 

[smee]

I think people are assuming that just because they have a "lousy" wireless network or live far from anyone else then so does everyone else.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

Mine does not use encryption, but I do use MAC address filtering, and turned off the SSID broadcast. I don't have any full time WiFi devices in the home, so a hacker would need to be lucky to capture my PDA's MAC address during the few minutes per day when its powered on at home.

 

[Skibum]

I know the exact range of my wireless, and there is literally no point that you could sit, and get my wireless signal that I would not notice, or would not be noticed by the police.

For any long range devices that I install, I always go point to point. My next project is 1/2 mile.

 

[Rupp]

Smee,
What kind of distance are you getting out of your wireless router? I can go to the front walk and that's it. If there are better ones I want it. I have trouble sitting on my deck and getting a good signal. This dang Compaq with the metal case cuts down the signal significantly.

On another note. My router has a log that shows all connections and my router has never registered another connection. Man that log gets large.

I get an excellent connnection to my neighbors DLink though. I would love to split the cost of this expensive broadband. I wonder if people living in apartments ever share their connections?

 

[electron]

With my carPC, I can pick up networks which are 200ft away, at 70mph!

 

[rocco]

and can only connect within about 15 feet from the house.

My wireless access point in is my basement, so range outside is very limited.

I think many of us are forgetting the magic that a high gain antenna can perform. If you can receive ANY signal outside the house, you can probably receive it hundreds of feet away with a good Yagi-beam.

 

[Chakara]

Not only that Rocco, but if you are someone looking for financial gain by accessing someone’s network, what neighborhood are you more likely to be looking in?

I'm not a big target by any means, but on my network are my financials, online banking info, online purchases, etc.

Basic security is a must for anyone that considers and uses computers as more than a toy. I know there is info I don't want people to get to on my network.

Several point's I don't get:

1) Performance affected
For basic functions like web surfing there is no noticeable impact. If you are moving large files, yeah, there can be a 10-15% impact by enabling encryption. (number pulled out of my posterior based on personal experience.)

2) Out of range
While it's not popping out at me now on Google, I know I've read of people spanning miles with home based gear. Of course this was with very directional antennas but just because the network is unavailable with built in antennas doesn't mean it's unavailable.

Even WEP gives you a fair amount of protection. It takes time to crack WEP - but if your network is wide open then you are depending on whatever OS you run at the house to protect you.....

All of this out of concern for you guys that are not using encryption. If you are not using encryption and your wireless is outside of your firewall, then maybe it's moot and you just want to share. However if your wireless is inside your firewall, I hope you reconsider.

 

[rocco]

If you are moving large files, yeah, there can be a 10-15% impact by enabling encryption. (number pulled out of my posterior based on personal experience.)

Though the impact of encryption used to be noticeable, my understanding is that, with the current crop of routers and access-points, the performance impact is near zero. Whereas encryption was originally performed in firmware, current WiFi ICs perform it entirely in hardware.

 

[Skibum]

and can only connect within about 15 feet from the house.

My wireless access point in is my basement, so range outside is very limited.

I think many of us are forgetting the magic that a high gain antenna can perform. If you can receive ANY signal outside the house, you can probably receive it hundreds of feet away with a good Yagi-beam.

Hehe...yeah, a guy with a laptop and a 3 foot yagi would blend right in.... :lol:

 

[smee]

Smee,
What kind of distance are you getting out of your wireless router? I can go to the front walk and that's it. If there are better ones I want it. I have trouble sitting on my deck and getting a good signal. This dang Compaq with the metal case cuts down the signal significantly.

Mine isn't that great - it's a fairly old access point.

What I think is important here is not whether specific individuals feel that they are vulnerable, but rather the impression that other people will get reading this. I see numerous posts where people say they are not concerned but don't necessarily qualify that by saying that they have tested everything, live 20 miles from the nearest neighbor, etc. If someone were casually reading this, they might think that it's nothing they need to be concerned with.

I live in an apartment. There are 4 apartments directly abutting mine - not including diagonals. I have absolutely no reason to believe that they can't see my network - no matter how weak the signal might be. I won't run without WEP, etc. even though people with houses 100's of feet from other houses will.

Like electron, I've picked up networks when I'm driving past houses (in my case, many at 40-45 mph - I've even picked up a couple at 60 mph or so). These are not houses directly on the street and it's not like I was loitering there. But if I were malicious, just a single drive home (on one route) found 50 or so networks, at least half of which had potential for being wide open. So it's not difficult to imagine someone taking a little time and effort to see what they can do.

There was just a story on the news about a ring of criminals who were stealing ATM card information. They rigged their own card readers (on ATM "building" doors) and used cameras to read PINs. They stole $400,000 over a 2 year period if I recall correctly. For a ring of criminals, that seems like a pretty low return - they are orgainized, not just a few guys who got some idea. If it's worth it for them to do that, why can't we imagine that it might be worth the time of some guy somewhere to look at our computers or internet access.

 

[smee]

and can only connect within about 15 feet from the house.

My wireless access point in is my basement, so range outside is very limited.

I think many of us are forgetting the magic that a high gain antenna can perform. If you can receive ANY signal outside the house, you can probably receive it hundreds of feet away with a good Yagi-beam.

Hehe...yeah, a guy with a laptop and a 3 foot yagi would blend right in.... :lol:

But put this in a car and park it in my apartment complex lot and it would blend in. The guy does not have to stay in the car - and he wouldn't need the large directional antenna.

Sitting at my desk at work, I can pick up (up to) 6 networks - some with WEP, some without. We don't have one here. If I walk to the other end of the building, I pick up more. Most of these are from outside the building. I can pick up the Starbucks hot point that is maybe 500 feet away. It's not that hard to find situations where it would be easy to grab info.

Just because you are in the "middle of nowhere" does not mean that everyone else is, too. Remember who might be taking your advice.

 

[JohnBullard]

I agree with the need for protection. Even though I indicated "wide open", I do use MAC filtering, just not WEP. (And I did change the default password, and SSID when I set the system up)

Am I concerned about security? You bet. That was why I carried my notebook and Pocket PC all around my property outside, to see just how far my signal was reaching.

My closest neighbor, a retired couple in their late 70's don't even have cable TV, they say their antenna gives them enough channels, heck, they don't even see the need for an electric garage door opener, even though they had new garage doors installed last year, they still prefer to open them manually.

The next closet neighbor would be over 400 feet away.

Then why haven't I enabled WEP if I'm concerned about security, I just asked myself? Hmmm Didn't see the "need" to go the one extra step, in my situation.

After reading all of the fine posts here, when I get back home this weekend, I may just go ahead an enable WEP.


Thanks for everyone's input and thoughts.