Using some one elses wireless network..

As long as you aren't using WEP or WPA with TKIP and are using a sensible passphrase (i.e. mixed case alphanumeric plus symbols and as long as possible) no one is going to bother breaking it unless you're GCHQ.
 
groen said:
if you are running windows there is not much you can do. If someone has the knowledge to crack your wpa/wep then they will most likely have the knowledge to access all the computers on the network as well. Wireless is like someone coming over to your house with a network cable and plugging it directly into the network.But thankfully there are not many people who have the knowledge. But it is getting easier and easier. If you are paranoid, cover up your webcams with tape when you are not using them, keep a nix based fileserver. *shrug*
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Well,
actually, Windows is no different from Linux, really.

Some simple steps (on both)

-Disable inactive user accounts
-Set strong passwords on all accounts
-Disable 'guest' access
-Disable UPNP/Homegroup type systems
-Strong personal firewall on each machine.
 
groen said:
realy ?
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Yup, properly secured there isn't a huge amount of difference from an abstract point of view.

As Tolien said, if you avoid WEP and WPA-TKIP then WPA2-AES is top notch security, and don't expect that to be broken anytime soon. It's unlikely that even intelligence agencies can crack AES, they would just break into your house and bug your router instead :p
 
I used one on Friday, an unsecured neighbour. I would have used my own, but I was just out of range (sat in the car, looking for fitting instructions for my bluetooth kit).

I was literally about to tether the iPhone when I noticed an unsecured network, so "borrowed" it for 10 minutes.

Mine is secured by RADIUS.
 
can't you pose as the SSID and the forward the traffic on to the real SSID and intercept all the packets, i admit that won't give you local network access. but you could still gain access to the packets and not all of them will be encrypted. unless i don't know what WPA2 is about. not something i have done myself but i have seen MITM attack demos for wifi.
 
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groen said:
can't you pose as the SSID and the forward the traffic on to the real SSID and intercept all the packets, i admit that won't give you local network access. but you could still gain access to the packets and not all of them will be encrypted. unless i don't know what WPA2 is about. not something i have done myself but i have seen MITM attack demos for wifi.
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Yer, a spoofed access point will only allow you to communicate with that connected host you wouldn't be breaking into the existing wireless network. And there is no way to forward packets on to the real SSID (without the encryption key). I suppose you could argue you could then hack that connected PC and somehow find its WPA keys.

I think typically the MITM's you are talking about are in reference to WEP, and once broken you can use ARP spoofing to mitm anyone on the network.
 
tntcoder said:
It would have a complexity of 2^255 on a full brute force, which is completely infeasible :p There is also a related-key attack which brings it down to 2^99.5 which is also still not possible.
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Is that the number of combinations?

Heh just did some digging around on google

Assuming the encryption algorithm is not flawed, and assuming a randomly generated key, breaking 256 bit AES requires on average 2**255 trials.
Assuming each attempt takes one nanosecond (10 ** -9 seconds), that is
2**255 * 10**-9 = 5.78960446 × 10**57 seconds, or, 1.83587153 × 10**60 years. Even if the feds have one billion computers working in parallel to decrypt your laptop, that is still 1.83587153 × 10**51 years. For comparison, I believe the Universe is said to on the order of 10**10 years old.
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AES related of course :)
 
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mod1fied said:
Is that the number of combinations?
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Yer, so the AES decryption algorithm would need to be evaluated 2^255 times, there are 2^256 possible keys and you can expect to find it after trying half the key space, so 2^255 evaluations.

So its not gonna happen (quantum computers aside) :p some rough guestimates put top intelligence agencies at being able to brute force maybe 2^70ish (IIRC).
 
groen said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHGurQDow4k

can't watch it at work, just a google search for WPA2-AES brought it up..:rolleyes:


"15 computers with a GeForce 8800 GT each working in parallel thanks to mpi4py. "
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That's just a dictionary/rainbow hack on a weak password, with horrendous music.

To be successfully you need a database with the key in it, and you wont create a database with 2^255 entries. Sure you may have some success if the network has a weak password though :)
 
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ouch didnt know half of this stuff,
im using a wpa/wpa2 Personal PSK, with a long network key, i also have mac address filtering turned on and guest accound disabled.

how safe am i?
 
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