Re: My Saturday with Netstumbler...

[Russell Handorf <rhandorf () mail russells-world com>]

http://www.philly2600.net/wirelessmap/

for the version 1.0 of open wireless lans here in philly

russ

At 05:06 PM 3/5/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> We've all read countless articles about WLAN security.  Have they done any
> good?  Based on my experience Saturday afternoon, I'd have to say that
> all of the press that WLAN (in)security has received hasn't helped.
>
> I was bored Saturday afternoon, so I got in the car, hooked up my
> Netstumbling gear and went for a ride in around a major east coast US
> city.  For the curious, my rig consists of:
>
> IBM ThinkPad T21 (P3/800, 512MB RAM, Win2k) sitting on passenger's seat
> Orinoco Gold USB WLAN device (w/10ft USB cable) sitting on back deck
> Garmin eTrex GPS with serial interface cable sitting on dashboard
> Netstumbler 0.3.23 (set to detect APs, but not reconfigure WLAN card)
>
> Over the course of about 90 minutes, covering an area about 10 blocks
> by 30 blocks, driving on only the more "interesting" streets, I discovered
> 119 Access Points.  Of course, my findings here are anecdotal, and may or
> may not be representative of what's going on out there in general.
>
> Thoughts on WEP usage...  We all know that WEP is not a reasonable
> solution for keeping your data private, however, it does help prevent
> casual lanjacking.  Firewalling off the APs from the rest of the
> network and using IPSec clients to connect between the WLAN clients and
> the firewall give a much more complete security model.  However, WEP is
> certainly better than nothing.
>
> Highlights of my findings:
> - Only 23.53% of APs found were using WEP
> - 80.77% of Linksys APs used the default SSID, "linksys"
> - 2 out of the 3 Apple AirPort base stations had WEP turned on
>
> Detailed findings follow:
>
> Percentage of Total APs by vendor:
> Addtron                   3      2.52%
> AMI                       2      1.68%
> Agere (Orinoco/Lucent)   47     39.50%
> Apple                     3      2.52%
> Cisco (Aironet)          20     16.81%
> D-Link                    4      3.36%
> Linksys                  26     21.85%
> Netgear                   2      1.68%
> SMC                       2      1.68%
> Other                    10      8.40%
> --------------------------------------
> Total                   119
>
> WEP Usage By Vendor:
>             Clear        WEP        % Using WEP
> Addtron       3             0             0.00%
> AMI           2             0             0.00%
> Agere        37            10            21.28%
> Apple         1             2            66.67%
> Cisco        11             9            45.00%
> D-Link        4             0             0.00%
> Linksys      21             5            19.23%
> Netgear       2             0             0.00%
> SMC           1             1            50.00%
> Other         9             1            10.00%
> -----------------------------------------------
> Total        91            28            23.53%
>
> APs With Default SSID By Vendor:
>            Default SSID     Other SSID    % With Default
> Addtron        2                1             66.67%
> AMI            1                1             50.00%
> Agere          1               46              2.13%
> Apple          0                3              0.00%
> Cisco          1               19              5.00%
> D-Link         2                2             50.00%
> Linksys       21                5             80.77%
> Netgear        0                2              0.00%
> SMC            1                1             50.00%
> Other          0               10              0.00%
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Total         29               90             24.37%
>
> --
> Jason Costomiris <><           |  Technologist, geek, human.
> jcostom {at} jasons {dot} org  |  http://www.jasons.org/
>           Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
>                     My account, My opinions.

==================================
Russell Handorf
oooo, shiney ::Wanders after it::

www.russells-world.com
www.philly2600.net

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, 
we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and 
listening to repetitive electronic music."

Kristian Wilson
Nintendo Inc. 1989
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