[Lilux-help] Seeking advices/ideas

Sun Feb 20 21:28:35 CET 2005

There's nothing illegal in trying to be connected to an opened network, 
even wirelessly.
I saw members of the "Golf Club Grand-Ducal" being surprised that they 
might get connected to the Internet from the club house, by using the 
golf club wireless network. What's wrong with this, if the network is 
opened ? If it is opened, what law should prevents you to use it ?

If I leave money on the sidewalk, I don't expect a law to force the 
discoverer to return it to me...

Now, if you try to force the access to a computer that prompts you a 
legal warning like "Access to this server is strictly limited to the 
authorized users", then you've been warned that you entered a private 
property. But even, I'm not sure there are laws against this in 
Luxembourg. There are defenitely such laws in USA and other states of 
EU, but I'm not aware of such laws in Luxembourg.

Even in the UK (London), young guys are writing with chalk wireless 
network characteristics on buildings and sidewalks to make easier the 
connections of future unexpected users. I never read anything about an 
arrest of such guys. A recent study made in the US showed that a 
majority of the corporate wireless networks where opened or weakly 
protected. For me, having such a wireless network at home is like 
putting an unattended ethernet outlet outside your home: you just 
publish to anybody all what is on your home network: advocate letters, 
private e-mails, web browser cookies and history (so potentially your 
sexual preferences with lot of details). I'm not yet convinced that the 
new 802.11X encryption mechanism is safe, so I strickly advice for the 
time being to consider wireless connection as practically unavalaible, 
or equivalent to an open network, until proof of security is obtained 
from other peoples than the related hardware vendors.

What is strange to me is that GSM technology is older, much more widely 
used, and gives potentially interesting informations and ways to gain 
money if cracked (I'll not explain you how. Just imagine yourself) and 
seems to be safe up to now. I don't expect somebody to call using my GSM 
credit without my chip, as I don't expect anybody unautorized to listen 
to my conversations when using a GSM. (Lady Di was using a wireless 
analog phone, not a GSM). It even offers strong authentication, what 
wireless network does not yet (if I'm well informed). So why the 
wireless vendors, that suffers strongly from justified untrust regarding 
the security of their network, didn't managed from years to secure their 
devices ???

Other experiences I had (through customers) was that devices from 
different vendors were poorly interoperating (limited distance, rapid 
performance degradation, ...) and that it was very limited when used in 
a armed concrete building or even an old traditional house, made of 
stone. Also, with accessible Gigabit Ethernet devices and switches, and 
DSL+ technology (bringing up to 25 Mb/s Internet connection soon), I 
think current wireless technology (802.11G) is really limited: the 
standard specify 54 Mb/s _*shared*_ bandwidth on each of the three 
channels. Knowing that only three channels is too few to garantee the 
usability of the technology in all topologies, don't expect to use more 
than one such channel. Compare 54 Mb/s (maximum theorical shared 
bandwidth) with 1000 Mb/s switched, there's no hesitation.

As already explained in this mailing-list, if you really need this 
technology, consider the wireless segment as opened, put firewalls at 
each connecting point, and establish VPN on this unsecure link. Good luck.

/"How to make people aware of the dangers ?"

/
If the people you are speaking aobut are using Internet Explorer on 
Windows connected to the Internet, I don't see the point of warning them 
about the dangers of wireless technology... They are already opened to 
the world !

Cegecom made a PLC (Power Line Carrier) test in Luxembourg around 2000. 
They connected a village through the power outled to the Internet. No 
possible check about the amount of connection using each home access 
point. No filtering at all. Not even a network topology separating the 
homes. In this case, when you clicked on 'Network Neighborhood", you had 
really a picture of your neighborhood's network ! Amazing ! So what's 
wrong with opened wireless networks ???

By the way, this mailing-list and club is not about Linux but about free 
software in general, opened to other near technologies, such as 
OpenSource and BSD.

Paulo Ribeiro a écrit :

> Hi everybody,
>
> This has little to do with Linux but more with security. If this 
> request is off topic, simply diregard it and I won't do it again, I 
> promise :).
>
> As the Lilux people seem to have legal knowledge about things in 
> Luxembourg and great ideas/advices on how things work with government, 
> I thought I could ask this here.
>
> I happened to bump into two 15/16 year old guys who were wardriving in 
> my "Cite". I was quite impressed. Actually, they were by foot. One 
> holding the PC and the antenna, the other holding a piece of paper 
> probably writing the details of their discoveries.
>
> Well, this is only my personal opinion but I cannot help myself and 
> think about what they would do if they found an unprotected network.
>
> My questions are:
> How to make people aware of the dangers?
> Write to the city hall to ask them to produce a small piece of paper 
> and put it into people's brief cases?
> Organize some kind of event? with whom? by whom? Maybe this was 
> already done?
> Are there organizations that care about those awarness programs and 
> would be glad to help?
> Does anybody know if foreign governments have such programs?
>
> As you see, I don't know much but I was willing to try something.
>
> Thanks for any suggestions/advices/ideas :)
> Paulo
> _______________________________________________
> Lilux-help mailing list
> Lilux-help at lilux.lu
> http://lilux.lu/mailman/listinfo/lilux-help

-- 
Brent Frère

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