Wireless Security is a big Laugh?

[unmanedpilot]

Yea wireless internet isent all that secure yet unless you decide to use a 32 caracter lenth password, but for most people useing a wireless router are just trying to keep general hackers from easly getting a internet fix to do something illegal. they have a 300Ft range sometimes and if you see someone in a van sitting infront of your house wouldent you try and find out what there doing? I would go knock on the window then they would have been caught and told to move. My family bought a wireless router just so i can use my laptop from anywhere in the house and we set a WEP password on it. Nothing special just we dont want people to use our connection for an illegal purpose... beacuse thats my job.

[TheCotMan]

Yea Yes, wireless i Internet isent isn't all that secure yet, unless you decide to use a 32 caracter lenth character password.

Contrary to what businesses advertise, levels of security with crypto are not just measured by the bit-length of a key.
Proof by counter-example:
Provide a novice cryptographer with a 2MB text document written in English but encrypted with an unknown key of 1024 bit-length. Assuming 8 bits per byte, this would be 128 bytes, and could be 128 characters. Assume key is reused without change every 1024 bits using simple XOR. (Though, this key may actually have less than 7 bits of entropy, and something closer to 5 or 6 bits on a really good day if those characters are limited to printable ASCII.)
Frequency distribution is one tool they could use to decipher the original document.
Generally speaking, for any given cipher, the longer the key length the "better" the protection for the data, but this is not always the case, and there is some such thing as diminishing return.

In the case of WEP, when you enter a 32-bit passphrase, that is generally used to create key(s) for use with WEP that are much shorter in bit-length.

, but for most Most people, useing using a wireless router are just trying to keep general hackers from easly getting a internet fix exploit (?) to do something illegal.(Run-on sentence truncated.)

I disagree. I have no current numbers, but I suspect most people using wireless routers are not trying to prevent people from using it at all-- they mostly want quick and easy Internet access without wires.
The WorldWide War Drive(s) might provide some useful historical numbers of Access points found vs. Access Points with some kind of validation for use.
38% does not seem like "most people" to me.

they They have a 300Ft range sometimes and if you see someone in a van sitting infront of your house wouldent wouldn't you try and find out what there they're doing?

300 Foot range?

Did you see The WiFi Shotout? They claim a "New world record for unamplified wireless networking of 125 miles."

As for walking up to a van parked out on the street to knock on the window? No. Not me. That van might have feds inside of it-- or worse.

I would go knock on the window-- then they would have been caught and told to move.
My family bought a wireless router just so i can could use my laptop from anywhere in the house. and we We set a WEP password on it. -- nothing special, just we we just (needs more work) dont don't want people to use our connection for an illegal purpose illegal purposes... beacuse thats my job.

And you think WEP is enough?

Your other post was /dev/null-ed. This one may get put there by someone else.

Work on your writing skills.

[Thorn]

...
I disagree. I have no current numbers, but I suspect most people using wireless routers are not trying to prevent people from using it at all-- they mostly want quick and easy Internet access without wires.
The WorldWide War Drive(s) might provide some useful historical numbers of Access points found vs. Access Points with some kind of validation for use.
38% does not seem like "most people" to me. ...

Just to emphasize that figure a bit more, 38% was after four WWWDs, and three years of public awareness. When Pete Shipley published his figures in 2001 from the first wardrives, the figure was about 12%.

[Dutch]

Just to emphasize that figure a bit more, 38% was after four WWWDs, and three years of public awareness. When Pete Shipley published his figures in 2001 from the first wardrives, the figure was about 12%.

And seen in relation to the current stats for the complete 4+ million Wigle dataset, this trend continues :

WWWD 1 : 69.86 % without WEP
WWWD 2 : 72.07 % without WEP
WWWD 3 : 67.74 % without WEP
WWWD 4 : 61.60 % without WEP
Wigledataset as of 07/10/2005 : 50.60 % without WEP.

And remember those numbers does not take into account any networks where other securitymeasures such as VPN might be used instead of WEP.

As the numbers say, the securityawareness regarding WiFi usage has risen significantly during the last couple of years. Not enough, but the trend speaks for itself.

Dutch