[ubuntu-uk] wifi mini-survey

[Tom Bamford]

Mac wrote:
> Do you use Ubuntu on a laptop + wifi?
>
> And, if you do, do you use
>
> no encryption / WEP / WPA / WPA2
>
> with ESSID broadcast / hidden?
>   
Thinkpad with an Atheros 5212 a/b/g mini-PCI card running Madwifi-ng 
drivers. I use WPA (TKIP) and WPA2 (AES) with a nice long passphrase. 
SSID is set to broadcast because it's pointless trying to hide it. 
Anyone with a bit of knowledge can see you lit up as soon as your AP or 
your clients send a few packets.

I see a couple of people use WEP or no encryption whatsoever. You must 
be mad! No encryption is asking for it: not only can people access your 
network, but you are essentially _giving_ away your personal information 
by broadcasting it in every direction for several hundred metres.

WEP is not much better. I've cracked all my neighbours networks (7 of 
them) in less than a day using open software from the repos (purely a 
field exercise of course). It's astonishingly easy to break a WEP 
network and it can be done from a wide radius merely by having your 
router switched on - you don't necessarily have to be sending/receiving 
any data. You might think no-one will target you, but they will. Watch 
your router activity LED very carefully...

http://aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=tutorial
http://www.cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/aircrack-ptw/
http://www.kismetwireless.net/documentation.shtml

Tom