A practical study in urban stumbling

sjmaks · 04-29-2002

Recently, or more specifically, last week, I was in San Francisco doing a wireless assessment for a client of mine. For part of the assessment I went outside in the downtown area, sat on the steps of a large building and fired up netstumbler. Needless to say, in downtown San Francisco there was quite a bit of network activity. I came across an AP that looked interesting, it didn't have WEP enabled and gave me a strong signal. I fired up Airopeek and was amazed at the amount of traffic going on through this AP. In a matter of moments I had logged enough data to have compromised some of the machines on the network.

The real amazing thing is that since this was an urban setting, a guy sitting outside on his laptop enjoying the afternoon weather is not an uncommon site. It still amazes me how open these networks are. I suppose that is another side effect of implementing new technology without understanding it. Ah well, keeps people like me in business.

Steve

systemd0wn · 04-29-2002

it is amazing, and frankly I would like to someday be doing what you do for a living. Although your right, it amazes me sometimes how much people don't implement any security. In some cases I would almost say that they DIDN'T want any security on purpose if I didn't know that wasn't the case. Especially when it deals with a clientele basis. Transactions, etc... amazing is right.

blackwave · 05-01-2002

I find it even more amazing that we develop laws and acts instead of developing higher standards of technology. Banning mechanism circumvention, and banning reverse engineering is not the way to go, especially when other territories, or just the plain bad guys do not follow or recognize the laws anyhow... sad, so very sad...

fordem · 05-01-2002

because waaay back when I was at CTEC in Dayton, the first thing they taught us was to disassemble the code, then take the diassembled code and work backwards from the point of failure, until you found why it failed.

And that was the legitimate way of finding & fixing the problem

04-29-2002	#1 (permalink)
sjmaks Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 11	A practical study in urban stumbling Recently, or more specifically, last week, I was in San Francisco doing a wireless assessment for a client of mine. For part of the assessment I went outside in the downtown area, sat on the steps of a large building and fired up netstumbler. Needless to say, in downtown San Francisco there was quite a bit of network activity. I came across an AP that looked interesting, it didn't have WEP enabled and gave me a strong signal. I fired up Airopeek and was amazed at the amount of traffic going on through this AP. In a matter of moments I had logged enough data to have compromised some of the machines on the network. The real amazing thing is that since this was an urban setting, a guy sitting outside on his laptop enjoying the afternoon weather is not an uncommon site. It still amazes me how open these networks are. I suppose that is another side effect of implementing new technology without understanding it. Ah well, keeps people like me in business. Steve

04-29-2002	#2 (permalink)
systemd0wn Probematic Stumbler Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Illinois Posts: 153	it is amazing, and frankly I would like to someday be doing what you do for a living. Although your right, it amazes me sometimes how much people don't implement any security. In some cases I would almost say that they DIDN'T want any security on purpose if I didn't know that wasn't the case. Especially when it deals with a clientele basis. Transactions, etc... amazing is right. __________________ Systemd0wn '311 Transistor, its a lightning resistor'

05-01-2002	#3 (permalink)
blackwave Do I look like I'm joking Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: SoCal, OC Posts: 4,507	I find it even more amazing... I find it even more amazing that we develop laws and acts instead of developing higher standards of technology. Banning mechanism circumvention, and banning reverse engineering is not the way to go, especially when other territories, or just the plain bad guys do not follow or recognize the laws anyhow... sad, so very sad... __________________ -=BW=-

05-01-2002	#4 (permalink)
fordem Tropical Stumbler Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 575	So very sad ... because waaay back when I was at CTEC in Dayton, the first thing they taught us was to disassemble the code, then take the diassembled code and work backwards from the point of failure, until you found why it failed. And that was the legitimate way of finding & fixing the problem

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