Using "Hot Spots" for Malicious Activity

[MrCoffee]

Lots and lots of places are offering "Free hotspots", such as hotels for their guests. Within a 5 minute walk of where I work, I can hit 4 or 5 different hotspots that are wide open. When it isn't -18 outside, myself and a couple of co workers will have lunch on the grass at one such place and surf on my Vaio. A buddy and I have hit and used over 75 different unsecured APs. My location is a TINY area, I would think that a city would have thousands.
A couple of the places (homes) even have unsecured shares. So I would think that "Yes" it is that easy.....

[Double//Cut]

I live in a small (1mil) city in Australia. Not many people here really know how to secure their Wifi network. Except obviously the major companies...

I go war-driving alot, mainly with my pda, cause my lappy now has more external HDD's than a ... normal laptop :/

Anyway. My point reason for all this, is simple. Most people have unsecured APs, i can find about 20 in 15minutes.

So if i went driving for say an hour. Thats ~80 in an hour. Of 80, say 50 have the internet (ie not a single reconfig needed) of those 50 people, we can find the house w/o problems of atleast 50% of them. Brings me to 25 houses with unsecured APs running the internet for anyone to use.

Now, being a very social creature myself, I managed to work my way into a Sales Rep. job at a medium IT contracting company. So i know what to say.

25 Houses, "Hi, i just connected to your AP" gather much more information and explain that they can easily blow your monthly downloads which could be very costly etc etc etc "however, i have the know how and can secure it for a small fee ($AUD50)". If only 10 of those people say yes, thats $AUD550 in your back pocket.


edit: keep in mind, a 100% success in every AP and client would mean a gross revenue of upto $AUD4000, not bad for a week or twos work. Best about it, nobody does it in Adelaide
Well, thats my plan for now, just gotta get my lappy back up and running nix wireless so i can add weak WEP encryption to my list.

I know they call this extortion, or protection money. But i have very little use for free internet, i have much use for a couple extra dollars i can put in my back pocket.

IMHO, we both win. And depending on the client (old / young / irritation / skiddies) the price can be adjusted.

Just an idea, but a little offers me much of a challenge...

[whatthe]

From this article on ZDNet

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-5552100.html

Shipments of wireless routers jumped to nearly a billion units in 2004 and are expected to continue to grow at double-digit percentage rates over the next couple years.

Based on what study you read, only 10 - 20% of these will be secure so that's gotta be getting close to Tiger Shark's "gazillion" hotspots.

I liked this quote

and even agreed to share his broadband connection with a neighbor across the street in exchange for beer.

He must live on Evergreen Terrace across from Homer. MMMMMM beer.

If his ISP caught him and called the police do you think he would be charged with a more serious offense because he's receiving compensation for sharing his internet connection?

[a morning chill]

I agree completely, if you are offering it for free, you're doing a service! But the state of legal practice in the US is pitiable at best. Our court system heard (and ruled on) a civil case where an elderly woman bought a cup of coffee from a McDonalds drive-thru, took the lid off to drink it (while still in her car), spilled it in her lap and received some serious burns due to the temperature of the drink. McDonalds stated they serve coffee very hot so it will be an acceptably warm temperature when the customer arrives at their location and can consume the drink. She sued...and won, I believe. It say's on the menu HOT COFFEE but the court ruled in her favor.

This is a common-day myth, as too few have expanded upon the case. The woman did win, but only because that McDonalds in particular had their coffee temperature near 35 degrees above health saftey standards, and they had been warned before. That means this coffee was anywhere from 95-125 degrees F (the liquid was actually 190 degrees F). That's pippin hot! So she didn't win because she couldn't read the labels. She won because that company went FAR beyond health saftey standards, and had been warned multiple times on their coffee temperature and not taking the time to put the lids on all the way.


The point I'm trying to make is that most "unfair" and odd court rulings usually have a very good reason. Keep in mind that you can't be an idiot and make it into the court system, as it requires a TON of schooling and then knowing enough for you to get elected. The court cases that have rulings which seem "odd" are not because the judge was dumb, but because the losing party (in this case McDonalds) will begin to spread word about the case to the media as soon as it the case begins. So no one will look into the actual documentation of the casae and why she actually won, but instead just trust what they heard on the intarweb/Fox News.

sources:

http://corpreform.typepad.com/corpre...uth_about.html

http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm

http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbus..._mcdonalds.htm

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm