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General discussion

OPB (Other people's broadband)...

May 7, 2005 11:49PM PDT

When I'm on the road, the first thing I check when entering a hotel room is whether there is a unprotected broadband signal that I can catch a ride on.

As I write this, I'm in Boston and riding a new wave. I'm wondering whether the average broadband user can detect my hookup to his/hers network. Also, how much risk is there that they can also access my hard drive when I'm hooked up to their system?

Discussion is locked

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Yes. I can.
May 8, 2005 12:03AM PDT

But you couldn't since mine is locked down.

Think about this. Some wifi spots are in reality HONEY POTS. It is now possible to setup a rogue hot-spot that is malicious in nature.

That is, it collects information you may pass back and forth such as name, passwords to email and other accounts. There is also the possibility of such to install TROJAN KEYBOARD LOGGERS.

-> At least somebody has warned you of such behavior today.

Bob

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Yes. I think you probably can...
May 9, 2005 12:48PM PDT

Assuming some bad guy was able to put a key stroke recorder on my hard drive, would Spybot find and remove this kind of program?

I am running Norton Internet Security and I notice that it prevents me from logging on to certain financial sites unless I turn Norton "off" when I'm on the road. At home, I have no trouble getting on these sites. This being the case, I would like to think that Norton would keep anyone from installing a spy program on my computer. Is this wishfull thinking?

In the string above, I asked about the average user running a wireless network that I logged on to and whether he/she could "see" me logon. I can't see my wife logon to the wireless network at home so I'm trying to figure out how someone running an unprotected network can see me catch a ride on his wave.

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In short. It's all too easy.
May 9, 2005 9:20PM PDT

I have the SNMP reporting facility running on my setup, but I can safely bet that 99 out of 100 systems will not have any use monitoring.

As to the key logger, detection programs only detect what they were programmed to detect. Since you may not believe the honey-pot issue, I'll supply one article about it.

http://www.thechannelinsider.com/article2/0,1759,1755868,00.asp writes:

"
A whole new class of attacks is emerging to threaten Wi-Fi users. "Evil Twin" and other Wi-Fi-oriented attacks can fool users into providing confidential information or compromise their computers.
"

This may prove to be the great equalizer in free vs. pay hot-spots.

Bob