[P1] OT: Setting up Public Wi-Fi

[Pam Sorooshian]

On Mar 11, 2004, at 4:09 PM, Brian Pearce wrote:

> With the technology being made so much easier to use, all kinds of 
> people can easily set up these sorts of networks and use them, and 
> that includes people who's expertise doesn't go too much further than 
> plug-and-play. In some cases, those who do so may well be unaware of 
> some of the basic security measures that should be taken; but just 
> because one could take advantage of them, doesn't mean one *should.*

Well, yeah, that would be me --- I just followed simple directions, 
plugged the cablemodem in to a Linksys router and have my mac plus 
several pc's all connecting wirelessly. (Okay a brand new Dell laptop 
and my iBook each took about 30 seconds to set up, the other pc's took 
many many hours to clean up all the problems that seemed to erupt one 
after another as soon as I tried to connect wirelessly, but I finally 
did it - and the so-called support from linksys was worse then 
nonexistent - they wasted hours of my time.) Anyway - I'm clueless 
about most of what you guys are talking about - I have no idea why 
anybody would want to sniff my computers - they do everything BUT smell 
good, as far as I can tell <BEG>.

Although the signal reaches all over our house and onto the patio, it 
doesn't reach out to the street. Do I have some reason to worry about 
security?  What would people be trying to get from us and what would 
they do with it? Please - simple nontech answer needed.

Sometimes when I open the lid to my ibook, to look something up on my 
calendar, for example, it connects to somebody's wireless network and 
downloads my email immediately. I'm not "doing" anything to connect - I 
just happen to have my email program open and it does it before I even 
realize it. This happened to me at my dentist's office before and it 
happened to me today when I was just in a parking lot waiting for my 
daughter to get finished with a dance class. All of a sudden I realized 
that I had new mail. Seems like people have to take some responsibility 
for preventing this - or are we legally obligated to always have our 
airport cards turned off? I tend to turn it off when I'm out, because I 
heard here that the battery will last longer if it is off, but even so 
it doesn't seem that I should be considered to be doing something 
illegal just because I don't get it turned off instantaneously when I 
open the computer - seems like the people with the network could 
probably more easily prevent me from unintentionally accessing their 
network, couldn't they?

-pam
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