Anyone know what this means?

Johnny Versace

Hey,

I was playing around with my (centrino) laptop and I picked up a 3COM wireless network in my area.

The WEP password appeared to be blank as I was able to connect to this network.

What does this mean? Was I connected to someone else's connection? Should I have been able to access the internet (I wasn't able to)?

Capt'n Midnight

One of your neighbours does not use WEP

No you should not have been able to access the internet. The chances of you connecting to an un-metered connection are low - so if you use bandwidth then you are almost certainly financially impacting on someone.

The SSID should give you a clue. If it says IRISHWAN then you may be to arrange to get internet. If it says 101 then they are still using the Default SSID

Some one who climbs in an open window is not a security consultant.

Tom Dunne

Same thing happened me - but I picked up four wireless networks!

What this means, as Capt'n Midnight said, is that wireless users in your locality are not very security aware and most likely just switched on their access points and connected to the interweb without implementing any security.

I'm picking up networks such as "linksys" and "homenetwork" which look like default settings for access points.

Paulw

"Linksys" is certainly a default.

Could be interesting to just see what connections you can make, or what you can see on the network. And, if you're a really nice guy, you can find who they are, and send them a note to warn them of their open connections.

It's always important to change the defaults, and enable security.

bender

i was getting some wireless in my laptop and found out who it was and when i went and told the folks. they behaved as if i was invading their privacy... some folks... i dont even bother...

BigEejit

well ... if they havent changed the default ssid (or turned it off, or turned on wep/wpa) they probably havent patched their windows (I dont think they would be linux users with unprotected networks like that) .... so use Messenger messages like the spammers do, they wont have a clue who is sending them but they may get a wake up call .....

Paulw

Nasty but probably effective !!

Stky10

A friend of a friend in Dublin that lives near a well known hotel can pick up their wireless network from his front room, and get free internet access. Or at least they could last I heard about 3-4 months ago.

So some people are stupid enough to do it, but you'd
be very lucky. As well as that sooner or later they're
bound to cop on...

Duffman

Originally posted by Stky10
So some people are stupid enough to do it, but you'd
be very lucky. As well as that sooner or later they're
bound to cop on...

Even if they realise what you're doing, nothing will happen to you... I can't see how it could be illegal...

And beware Quote from bash.org:

(Mootar) morons.
(Mootar) these people who live in my apartment complex are connected to my wireless
(Mootar) they must think they're super-cool hackers by breaking into my completely unsecure network
(Mootar) unfortunatly, the connection works both ways
(Mootar) long story short, they now have loads of horse porn on their computer