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Thursday, July 07, 2005

Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal

Just saw this interesting piece tonight. It just reminded me of how careless people are with their wireless networks. For those of you who have wireless networks at home (or work), try these simple tips to keep your wireless network secure:
  1. Change the name of the network immediately. Everyone and their brother knows to look for "linksys" or "netgear".
  2. Stop broadcasting the name of your networks once you have changed the name.
  3. Change the administrator username and password to something secure. One of my doofus neighbors has left his username and password as "admin"/"admin". Moron!
  4. Use WEP or WPA. Almost all wireless routers have one of these encryption software loaded. Use it!
  5. If you can't figure out how to do any of these things, go down to your local high school (or comic book store), get yourself a geek, and offer him some pizza. In return, he will set up your network to be more secure than NASA.

All of this does beg the question, what is the point? Why should I worry about someone using a bit of my bandwidth? Who is it hurting?

Well, it could hurt you, my friend. What if said intruder decides to initiate a denial of service attack on a US government website or a company like Bank of America by using your wireless network? Who do you think they are going to come after? YOU!