There's a trade-in electronics chain in the UK called CeX, and their WiFi hotspots are open and named 'Unprotected CeX' by default which I always found amusing.
It would be great if everyone just put their phone number as the SSID.
Phone numbers are unique and let others contact you if they want to use your wifi for some reason. Would probably help neighbors get hold of each other in emergencies as well.
But then any random passerby could harvest phone numbers easily. And because of the nature of a) cell phones and b) wireless networks, there isn't really a good correlation from wifi-availability to geographic location to actual phone location. You might know all of your neighbours' phone numbers, but not which goes with whom, nor which ones are on your floor, or even in your building. And just imagine someone phoning them all to try to find out who's playing music at night.
When I lived in an apartment building our SSID was "internet-304". 304 being my apartment number.
No one ever showed up at my door or anything, but it was there. Seems like the most obvious and succinct way to tie the access point to a physical location, which seems the most obvious way to open communications.
Great idea. My in-laws have it backwards: the password is the street number... Changing it would break all devices that already store the password, so it stays.
It's passive aggressive because the people aren't directly speaking to their neighbors. Kind of like the notes in passiveaggressivenotes.com - those notes are direct, but they avoid direct confrontation.
Then all notes are passive by nature of not being face to face, and they should just be called "aggressive notes." Except many of these aren't aggressive in that they're not deliberately hostile or vengeful, just plain directives that some readers take as personal attacks for some reason.
I have two networks, a private one and a public one. The public one has no password, and the SSID is "My Address Guest". I've received thank-you notes. If overuse gets to be an issue, I'll throttle the public side, but it hasn't been so far.
And what if someone uses it for illegal activities? The buck would stop with you (or at least start there). I'd be very wary about an Open WiFi these days....
I've never seen that one, but I always use FBI + some long random string of numbers. A while back I had a neighbor ask me if I knew anyone on the street that was with the FBI. :)
I've recently run across a handful of political messages in prominent locations. Taking the train from Tampere to Turku, Finland, for example, someone on the train was broadcasting a really long SSID that translates roughly to "Support tram construction in Tampere and Turku!"
I've been using "just sit down and have a nice cup of tea" for some time. I use hyphens in the actual name. Alas, my neighbours still have SKY-some-large-number or the BT equivalent. They all do have wpa2 turned on however.
If I were to open a free wifi network and let anybody use it, say call it: "Free Internet!" and many people used it.
Could I intercept those users personal information suck as Facebook usernames, passwords, emails, etc?
How deep would me penetration go? Or will I only be able to intercept packets?
I always tell my wife to not use online banking etc when she visits a cafe with free internet, but it's just a hunch - not based on my actual knowledge on the matter. That's why I'm asking. Thanks!
> Could I intercept those users personal information suck as Facebook usernames, passwords, emails, etc?
Yes. You'd have to do a bit of work, since the info would be encrypted, but by being in-path you would get all the info you need to decrypt the messages.
> I always tell my wife to not use online banking etc when she visits a cafe with free internet, but it's just a hunch - not based on my actual knowledge on the matter. That's why I'm asking. Thanks!
Unless she does her web browsing over a secured vpn, then there's a chance that information could be seen by someone.
You're almost certainly not the "only one." But, most of us don't bother because it doesn't provide any additional security (and might mislead you into thinking you can make your network less secure).
No, it doesn't. Spectrum analyzers can detect WiFi signals regardless of whether or not they are broadcasting an SSID, which includes discerning what channel they are on. By extension, most software built-in to WAPs that automatically chooses the channel to reduce conflicts will do similar spectrum analysis. You can read GP's article from TechNet for more information on this.
my wireless SSID has been 1337haxz0r for the last 6 years. Nobody has attempted to break in, I hope to confuse people who don't use 1337 speak or scare off people that do...
this really isnt news I mean back when everyone left thier routers open be default alot of the network names where even more aggressive its funny they know howto change the sisd but not the damn password or encryption type lol
