Unmasking the Neighborhood Network Watch Emery Martin is a man on a mission. The 23 year-old resident of Brooklyn has spearheaded the Neighborhood Network Watch, a grassroots group advocating the monitoring by volunteers of open Wi-Fi networks "to make sure that terrorists may not be using your own home network to plan the next attack on our nation or your very own …
Too bad I already had an idea like this in my Neighborhood. I went around with my laptop and found the unsecured networks on 5 blocks around my house and found about 17 open wireless points. Of those all but one had the default router password on them. So I logged on, logged into the router, set up MAC filtering, changed the default password and secured the network.
Of those networks, they are all secured now.
Anon cause I dont need to deal with the police.
/coat cause Im a DHS agent in disguse.
I set up unsecured wireless access points, wait for some neighborhood geek with an inflated ego to nest on the street outside, let him start playing with my network full of tasty but spiked resources, then head over to his place, and douse his soft furnishings in.. well.. I digress.
I do this all for some spurious higher purpose that serves as convenient justification to tell all and sundry because, deep down, I am just in it to get my ego stroked.
Slow first, then fast. Oh yes. Thats the way. I've been a baaaaad boy.
My neighbours are welcome to use my wifi. When mine's down, I'll use their's. When friends come around, they can use my wifi without faffing around with the key.
Insecure computers, on the other hand are a big problem, as are non-encrypted web sessions but that is a completely different problem.
Perhaps you can convince them its okay being beige and boxy?
Oh, and Andy Barber... given that the article specifically mentioned 'open' wireless networks, why are you going all CAPITALISED about your secured one?
I leave open wireless as I find it. If I lived in a more densely populated area, I'd be tempted to run an open network just to see who might be using it and what for. Its funny how people often 'steal' bandwidth in this way, but don't imagine for one moment what a potentially ghastly security nightmare they could have let themselves in for.
Is best when evacuating all evidence of meaning and meaningfulness from the process and the product. Cage, Pollock, Rothko, etc etc. When it tries to do the opposite, it tends to end up just looking silly. But that is precisely how the Nu Insect Overlards have arranged things. For American art (w/o quotes) look and listen elsewhere.
An open network isn't 'insecure', its 'shared'.
Using an open network isn't stealing, its sharing by invitation.
(I'm really worried about the way traditional concepts of community and sharing are being pushed aside by fear and false security concerns. Are we going to build open shared efficient networks for the good of all, or hide away and close doors?)
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