Wi-Fi at DEF CON - dealing with the worlds most dangerous network

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2974662/network-security/wi-fi-at-def-con-dealing-with-the-worlds-most-dangerous-network.html

By Michael Horowitz
Computerworld
Aug 23, 2015

The wireless network at the DEF CON hacker conference has been called the 
most dangerous in the world. Members of the press were warned beforehand 
that "This is a Hacker Con, so consider the public network at DEF CON 
profoundly hostile! ... keep your Wi-fi and Bluetooth disabled as much as 
possible." The press room at the conference offered a private Ethernet 
connection to the outside world. I heard that staff at the DEF CON hotels 
(Paris and Bally's in Las Vegas) were telling guests to turn off their 
Wi-Fi.

In the days after the conference, I ran across four articles from people 
who attended DEF CON, all with a common theme of avoiding the Wi-Fi.

My defensive stance was taking a Chromebook to the conference. I used the 
machine, offline, to take notes, saving a copy both to a thumbnail sized 
USB flash drive and the internal Chromebook storage.

There were two Wi-Fi networks at DEF CON, one was totally open and the 
other locked down with WPA2/ 802.1x (a.k.a WPA2 Enterprise).

Perhaps I'm naive, but I felt no danger connecting the Chromebook to the 
public, open, unsecure network. Of course, I would only do so in Guest 
Mode.

[...]



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