Gatecrashing the WiFi hotspot party
By Davey Winder in Editorial
I attended at flashy BT launch party held in the restaurant on the seventh floor of the Tate Modern art gallery in London last week. Peaches Geldof providing the predictably thump thump thump dance music to which nobody was dancing. There were, however, lots of people squeezed in, enjoying the full array of services on offer such as the food and drink. My colleague and I established ourselves near one group who had just returned from the bar area armed with a huge plate of food, lots of cold cuts and olive bread, sundried tomato and roasted peppers a-plenty. We sat there, waiting for our chance to pounce, and when nobody was looking pinched a little bread and a few cold cuts. Nobody seemed to notice, nor care, so we upped the ante and swiped the entire plate. Now despite sitting just a few feet away from the people whose food it was, they were oblivious to the fact that we were helping ourselves to something that belonged to them. They had erected no obstacles to make it more difficult to swipe the food, nobody stood between us and it, nobody questioned what we were doing when we moved the plate onto our table, nobody shouted at the tattooed man sharing their food without their consent to stop.
Exactly like WiFi it seems to me.
Vast numbers of users just plug in their wireless router and start playing, without fannying about with security stuff. Not just home users, the consumer oinks who know no better, but small business users at the corporate end of the WiFi stick who really should know better. Even the basics such as changing the default root access to the router itself so there is a different password, sometimes any password at all in fact, and an admin username other than root. Not doing this leaves the hardware compromised to anyone who goes and Googles for the default security information for the router in question. But the numbers of folk who do not bother implementing any kind of perimeter security to prevent passers-by, people in the next office, anyone within range from usurping the connection and making use of bandwidth they have not paid for is remarkable.
Which is why the irony that this was the launch party for a new venture between BT and FON to form the ‘world’s largest WiFi community’ did not escape me. You see the plan is that everyone on the BT Total Broadband scheme, all three million plus of them, will be able to join the share your WiFi party. By opening a secure channel on the wireless router a small part of their bandwidth will become available for use by any other member. In effect turning your home or office into a BT FON WiFi hotspot.
Great idea, and all that, but as I have pointed out one that hundreds, thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of people are already making a reality today without even realising it.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by Mario Miniaci - October 9, 2007 on 1:10 pm
Only benefit, I guess, is that you’re not opening yourself up to a lawsuit by using someone’s FON WiFi!
Comment by Davey Winder - October 9, 2007 on 2:46 pm
Although, it has to be said, as with all similar mesh networks in the past there is the matter of the legal grey ground regarding who is liable if ‘your’ wireless connectivity is used by someone for an illegal purpose - be that accessing/distributing child porn or participating in terrorist activity. Extreme scenarios yes, but I like to know who is left standing holding the brown end of the stick at the end of a very bad day 
Comment by Mike Walsh - October 10, 2007 on 9:29 am
If you don’t want (or can’t) open up your own connection for this, you need to buy a one- (or five-)day pass. The only way to do this is to connect to one of the people who are providing such a FON connection and via their Internet Link go to PayPal and use your credit card (or PayPal itself) to pay the 3 Euros (1 day pass). This seems to be somewhat (!) of a security risk compared to going to a web page from your home non-wireless desktop to get such a pass (which isn’t however possible). [They make it hard to find out how to do this pass buying. Presumably so you give up and buy one of their devices and start sharing). Mike Walsh
Comment by - January 28, 2008 on 6:55 pm
Sounds like a bloody great can of worms to me. While I am happy to have friends share my Internet connection I would always be sceptical (in the: “A person seeking the truth; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite convictions.” sense rather than the rabid Little Englander sense) that the security was good enough to make it work without danger that the router could be compromised. Just think of the catastrophic consequences of having child porn planted on your computer by a presumably untraceable third party.
I seem to remember a story from a few years ago where an ex-wife arranged to have some child porn sent to her former husband by email which he immediatly deleted. She in the meantime informed the police.
Then of course there is this: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39115422,00.htm
But as you say many/most of us are doing this without realising. The thing is that this thing claims to be secure.
Nick
Comment by batteries - November 3, 2008 on 2:48 am
http://www.batterygoshop.co.uk/acer/as07a41-battery.htm acer as07a41 battery
Comment by - March 30, 2009 on 8:30 pm
all im trying to do is find bleeding ex diectory phone number,for which i have the persons name and date of birth and address.we thing the address is right but not 100% sure.im 59 and my computer knowledge could be wrote on the point of a very fine pin.but these sites that make claims they can do this and that,are all bollocks.all they do is refer you to another page who then refer you back again.ive tried all the genuine sites like friendsreunited,tracemart,missing .etc,there all a load of bollocks
Comment by - March 30, 2009 on 8:37 pm
why doesent some smartarse computer whizz come up with a simpler system,ie press button a,then press button a2 b1 x3 etc,instead of these muppets giving people the runaround.
Comment by - March 30, 2009 on 8:41 pm
any help advice critism etc.my email is steve2aa@ntlworld.com from steve angry anderson
Comment by - July 20, 2009 on 11:48 am
Why don’t someone try wifirush wireless internet and hotspot connection to remove security concerns. They provide an ultimate security while installing in your machine with their latest technology. you can be sure of one thing that if you choose wifirush wireless internet connection then forget security threat. Visit http://www.wifirush.com/services_flash.html for more information.
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