people with unsecured internet networks?

[Von Luck]

MAC filtering is worthless, it offers naff all security and just makes your life harder. Same goes for disabling SSID broadcasts.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Out of curiosity, since it appears the owner of the network is responsible for what happens on it (which I agree with), what happens to places with purposely open networks?

I'm thinking places like Starbucks or the like who offer free WiFi for customers. Will this die out when the owners decide they don't want to take responsibility for what people do on their network? Or will they start taking down identification and details before they let you on the network?

Do Starbucks or similar not tend to limit what pages are allowed to be accessed through their network i.e. use some sort of filtering software so certain topics/pages will be forbidden? I'd strongly suspect the bigger chains will have thought carefully about this and either been advised that a legal challenge is unlikely, have filtering software in place to limit their exposure to risk, got some sort of licence type agreement so that any customers using the facilities agree not to do anything dodgy or responsibility falls to the customer or maybe a combination of all three.

 

[Destination]

I've always had SSID broadcast on. I would think laptops would have no problem connecting to it if SSID broadcast was off, though.

Agreed, all you need to know is the network name, if you have the name, then you can connect with SSID on or off.

Myself, SSID off, WPA2 on with sufficient key in length, capitals and symbols.
Reasonably secure.

Of course if a judge ever asked, it would be an open SSID with absolutely no security. No idea bout it 'your honour' I guess anyone could have been using it.

 

[Efour]

ssid on cos it will make anyone laugh if they pick it up.

wep2 on, quite a reasonably long encryption key

frankly don't care too much. If a "professional" wanted to hack into it they will.

 

[daz]

Anyway I can hide my details like MAC address and IP address from being picked up?

Use encryption.

Two key things here:-
1) Secure your wi-fi and use a strong encryption protocol (e.g. WPA2)
2) Always use https versions of websites

A VPN is also a good idea, but probably overkill for most home users.