To WEP or not to WEP?

[andyahern]

wanman wrote
Connection speeds are full 11mbs although this is without WEP (probably not going to go down that route for 7book).


Hi,
I'm curious as to why you wouldn't want to use WEP on your 7Book. I have a Buffalo card on my 7Book talking to a Linksys access point, and I can't notice any difference in speed with WEP turned on or off. (I haven't done any benchmarking of file transfers, this is just my general perception of speed). The radio interface never drops from 11Mbps anywhere within my house or garden.
Are there other reasons (eg power consumption etc) why WEP may not be desirable ?

Cheers,
Andy

[wanman]

Nah, My comments were based on other user experiences. I too have now enabled WEP and notice no real difference on the web connection. Will have to experiment with and without some day and specifically on nftp transfers (if I ever get around to setting that up on my backup server).

The reason for the change in heart was that one of my colleagues showed me how easy it was to tap into a non WEP wireless network sat in the car outside our house. He then proceeded to show me how easy it was to tap into a WEP protected network as the WEP encryption is pants !!! Best advice is to use WEP, SSID & fixed IP addresses for all wireless items or even better, connect your kit using wires !!!! lol

[andyahern]

I've seen some web sites showing how to make high gain WiFi antennas from Pringles / Homebrew / Beans cans, allowing access from some distance away.

Is WEP easy to crack for your average teenage would-be hacker (I have certain neighbours in mind here :) ) or does require a certain amount of computer competence ?

I'm not really concerned about my normal surfing activities being watched - the boredom should kill them:D
I'm more concerned about my Credit card transactions. Is the security used for secure credit card transactions significantly more secure than WEP and is there anything else I need to watch out for ?

Cheers,
Andy

[wanman]

WEP is apparently (based on a friend who is able to do this) very easy to decrypt and uses only a basic algorithm. All you need to do is download the right piece of software off the web and away you go. How you then access and use the transmitted data, is a bit on the blurry side (I think I fell asleep at this point). As far as additional encripted data, such as your credit card details on a secure web pages go, I assume they would need the software to decrypt this aswell. I would think that you would need to be a serious hacker to get hold of and use this but not 100% sure as I have never tried.

I will ask my mate again for a more simplified version.

WEP is being strengthend but in all honesty it is really only to stop casual hackers. More serious attempts to access your data would not be stalled by this in 40, 6 or 128bit form.

I will see what else I can find out and post back later.

Regards

Si

[diem]

You need appropriate software tools to sniff the network packets, and patience to crack WEP. I'd say the security measures suggested by wanman will put off most hackers.

So long as your credit card transactions only take place on sites that use 128bit or better SSL, then the content of the TCP/IP packets will be significantly difficult to crack, and therefore safe.

[andyahern]

I tried messing around with packet capture software on my LAN at work using a freeware package called "Ethereal".
Although it is easy to capture the data, trying to sift any intelligence from the thousands of packets captured is almost impossible. If your credit card details are encrypted, it probably won't be obvious to a hacker which packets he / she needs to examine, from the thousands of packets available. This obscuring of the data probably contributes considerably to improving security.

Wanman - has your mate managed to capture useful data or has he just demonstrated a theoretical ability to crack WEP.

Cheers,
Andy

[Craggy]

Originally posted by andyahern
I've seen some web sites showing how to make high gain WiFi antennas from Pringles / Homebrew / Beans cans, allowing access from some distance away.

Don't suppose you've got any links to these have you? My house seems to be made of lead...
Seriously it's an old house and 802.11 doesn't seem to penetrate its solid walls very well so I'd be intrigued at any suggestions of how to make the signal stronger.

[donkeyontheedge]

try the following
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/tools/wireless_articles_range.htm

John

[Craggy]

Thanks very much, did a Google search and found some stuff (the Pringles one), but your page seems to offer plenty of solutions.
Damned Victorian houses and their proper internal walls with huge amounts of plaster.

[andyahern]

Craggy,
Try this one........

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

Cheers,
Andy