Very amusing thing I did with a wireless network connection today.
 

Well when my roomate was in his room he noticed that two wireless connections were available...linksys and linksys.... so we connected to the connection seeing oh cool its an 802.11b connection we can connection with our wireless g cards :) so we connect and I told my roomate $100 says they didn't change the default password for their router.....so I tried it and nope they left it as the default settings...so me and my roomate are laughing our asses off....well later that night we connect to theirs again. (during midday we changed our ssid and we do have a mac filter on it) so we connect and we where like omfg they are online...so looking at the folders that xp defaultly shares we found out the guys name was justin...so then we where like oh cool....so we tried to get into those folders...(it automatically was connecting me as guest) and my roomate was like hmm try the guys first name as a password...and boom we got in...(he didn't have much shared besides about 20 mp3's. As we are browsing throught the network we found out he named his workgroup after his last name so me and my roomate looked up his address and holy shit it was 4 blocks aways (which in my knowledge is good distance for 802.11b so then i'm like shit i got a good joke so i change my laptops name to server and the reboot and then i do a net send with the following message "your computer will restart in 5 minutes please save all your documents", i was tempted to do the amish virus joke... anyways me and my roomate are thinking of going over there and offer them some words of wisdom on internet security

Well, at least you had enough character to leave his stuff alone, and didn't spam the world from his account.

Always remember, have character, don't be one.

Re: Very amusing thing I did with a wireless network connection today.
 

Bad idea...he could go ballistic, or file charges or something.

Exactly. Remember, it isnt illegal to look for open connections, but it is illegal to use his connection, or browse through his stuff, or whatever. It may be polite to tell him that his connection is open, but dont tell him you were looking through his stuff--that *is* illegal.

I spotted someone with a very easy to guess password at uni a few years back - she was typing slowly, with one finger, and her password was lemon (IIRC - something short and easy to remember anyway). So, I duly waited for her to log off, logged in as her, and sent her an email from herself, explaining why such an easy to guess password was a bad idea and telling her, politely, that she should change her password to something containing letters and numbers, not a dictionary word etc, and also that she should be aware of the rest of the people in the computer room. I let her know that I could have used her accoutn for spamming or downloading porn and she would have got into trouble, not me. Oh, and I told her how to change her password.

I tried logging in to her account again the following day and the password had been changed!

Thus, My suggestion is do something similar - log in to this guys email, and send him something from himself, politely explaining the slight security glitch in his system..., with a few pointers to sites on how to improve matters... :)

edit: and well done for not spamming from his account or doing anything nasty. It's nice to know there are still nice guys around!

Yeah, there's no reason to be malicious, good going for not screwing with him. I think it's astounding how many ppl leave their WAPs open without even realizing it!! But there are freenets all over the place too, which is really cool when you need fast access.

I'd also suggest that, if you want to help the guy out, send him an anonymous email or IM, but it's definitely a good idea to remain anonymous in case a) he freaks out or b) someone else finds his open WAP and does something nasty, then he'll just blame it on you. A text file on his desktop might work too but I'll leave that up to you :)

I must reiterate;

Always remember, have character, don't be one.

I'd highly recommend against tampering in any fashion, including sending e-mail to himself, with the individual's system. The last thing you want is for the guy to flip out and call the FBI and get you busted for illegally accessing his system.

Just because it's insecure doesn't mean it's ok to look around, which is something that I'm sure a lot of us (myself included at times) have trouble remembering.

Good job not harming the poor guy, he probably bought the stuff from the salesman @ Best Buy or somewherre and doesn't know any better.

Oh, and for all you people with wireless networks out there wanting to see if anyone unauthorized is using your bandwidth, ther is a free program available called airsnare. You can find it @ http://home.comcast.net/~jay.deboer/airsnare/
It will let you send a console message to the unauthorized user telling them whatever message you want and will also automaticaly email you anywhere if someone uses it while you are away

Re: Re: Very amusing thing I did with a wireless network connection today.
 

You can leave the advice on a piece of paper slipped under his door...

Of course, he'll probably go ballistic from that too, if he'd go ballistic being told in person. ;)

i'd be happy if someone told me there was a problem with my network/computer... its like if i tell you "your car doors are open" "you might want to close them before someone steals the stereo" what would you do? tell off the guy?

I'm still trying to decide if snooping around sites which have index browsing enabled is wrong or not... I mean as long as I don't actually change anything, it is okay right ?