News Defcon: Warballooning goes ahead

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08/12/defcon-warballooning-goes-ahead/1

Despite last-minute setbacks that could have seen the project grounded, Rick Hill's Warballooning project launched on-schedule at this years Defcon hacker conference.

 

I was in Ohio for most of July and the host family I stayed with only had dial-up. Torturous, I tells ya.

Conveniently I'd picked up my new N95 8Gb just before I left, and it's amazing how many places had unsecured wifi. I could take a 5-minute walk through the suburbs and pass about half a dozen connections. A lot of churches and bars/restaurants seemed to have it too but they were usually secured

 

Sure I piggyback if my home connection isn't available. I figure the people who leave their connections open are probably not heavy internet users anyway, a website here and there is unlikely to affect them at all.

 

It's pretty stupid not to have it secured in the first place.

 

Well, what can be said, secure it or share it, simple.

 

If you've got unlimited data allowance and proper protection between your own private computers and the unsecured access point, why not let people use it for free?

 

In other news, a third of wireless networks have nothing interesting or worth stealing attached to them anyway. We're talking about home networks for the most part here. Trying to steal something worthwhile from them would be like throwing darts at a board while blindfolded. You're only marginally likely to find something good, and it means driving around town with a laptop and stopping outside people's homes to dredge through their files. It's much more effective to crack open an encrypted network that you know protects something worth your time.

 

I am known to piggyback on networks and depending on how badly i need it (i.e emergency) i have been known piggyback on protected (WEP/WPA/WPA2) wifi to get my data across, but then i am off as soon as i am done.

 

I admit I don't secure my wifi. The reason I don't... My house is too far away from any other house to have my wifi hacked, and if somebody wardrives its easy to see them outside my house...

 

connections (just for browsing etc) don't necessarily have to be secure - espcially with captive portals etc...

 

Yah, sure. What sort of "emergency" required you to break someone's WEP? You must be some kind of 1337 h4x0rz.

 

I'm always tempted to reconfigure and secure peoples connections, as most unsecured wifi connections tend to have default usernames and passwords on the router.
Our next door neighbours' wifi came in handy when our DSL was offline for a while, plus my DS can't cope with WPA encryption (WEP is far too easily crackable to be worth bothering with), so I use their connection for wireless play.

 

When a grandma died and we needed plane tickets ASAP and we are at a house without internet. That is the only time i have done it. Other times i just use unsecured.

 

to answer if i "borrow" bandwidth. Yes yes and a bit more yes assuming that im not at home and my service is dead. I have to spend a lot of time in hotels and in Oman the price of internet is staggering at times, so if i get the oppertunity i will.
Having said that im in the middle of setting up my access point and router to provide freebe (albeit limited) internet access for anyone who needs it and is in range of my house. Oh and i use a combination of WPA2 and PPTP VPN for my home wireless

 

I may have or may not renamed a few wireless networks when i was a student. They soon become secured once you rename them

 

when I lived in an apartment, I'd use the neighbors wifi for my laptop and Wii since I was too cheap and lazy to buy my own wireless router. I figure I'm paying for the cable internet, we all share the same freakin line (during peak hours it was ungodly slow), so whats the difference really if I use one of the 5(!) unprotected wifi signals in my building, it's all the same bandwidth.

 

Unless they cut into my cat5 lines their not getting into network without a direct internet based attack.

 

Nevermind, he came up with some answer like "my grandmar died", ********, he sounds like one of these super uber leet 12 year old *crackers* who thinks he has cracked it by pressing the "Connect" button, protected? cracked? bull **** my friend.

 

Wow, my friend, I am honored to be in the presance of your UbEr L33TnEsS...not. Unsecured network, you log into the router (unsecured?) and change the name, OmFg L33t!

 

I used to piggyback off of some store's wifi back in 2005. I was working in Nantucket for the summer and I spent most of the time outside the house working so I wasn't gonna pay for internet if was only gonna use it a little bit at night. This little store next to my house has an unsecured connection that I used whenever I needed access. It was usually at night so the store was closed anyway.

I've done it some other times after that on different locations and for different reasons (I'm not gonna try to come up with an excuse for it, I just wanted Internet and I wanted it right that instant). I think that as long as you're not doing any harm like deleting people's files or the like you're not doing anything REALLY bad. If they don't protect their network they should be glad that all you're doing is browsing the net.