Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Connecting to an unsecured wireless network

Slavakion · 01-28-2005, 06:28 PM

Well, while I was trying to fix my internet connection (long story short, the cable from the router to the modem was unplugged), I noticed that there's a new wireless network in town. That makes two as far as my wifi card can see. I noticed that the SSID was an unoriginal "linksys" and figured that there was no WEP in place. Fire up netstumbler for a confirmation; that network's open wider than an unpatched windows box. What did I do? I told my wifi card to connect. Success.

Since my neighborhood's not too densely settled, I think that the network belongs to one of two neighbors near me. My question is, what could someone with access to a network like that actually do that could be harmful? I know that you could leech bandwidth, but is there anything else? I want to know whether I should find my neighbor this weekend or bring it up in a conversation later.

01-28-2005, 06:28 PM	#1 (permalink)
Slavakion Mjollnir Incarnate Location: Lost in thought	Connecting to an unsecured wireless network Well, while I was trying to fix my internet connection (long story short, the cable from the router to the modem was unplugged), I noticed that there's a new wireless network in town. That makes two as far as my wifi card can see. I noticed that the SSID was an unoriginal "linksys" and figured that there was no WEP in place. Fire up netstumbler for a confirmation; that network's open wider than an unpatched windows box. What did I do? I told my wifi card to connect. Success. Since my neighborhood's not too densely settled, I think that the network belongs to one of two neighbors near me. My question is, what could someone with access to a network like that actually do that could be harmful? I know that you could leech bandwidth, but is there anything else? I want to know whether I should find my neighbor this weekend or bring it up in a conversation later.