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Cat 5 / Cat 6 across lawn in soil ?
I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?)
across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. Thanks Nick |
"nick smith" wrote in message
... I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. Thanks Nick I've recently done some burying of CAT5 in a lawn, and I think putting it in hosepipe is probably worthwhile, to protect it from mechanical stress during burial and reduce the amount of squashing/bending by soil/stones that it experiences once buried. Simon |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:33:38 GMT, "nick smith"
wrote: I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. Thanks Nick I would put it in something waterproof, I would go for the blue mains water pipe, its cheep and tough. Rick |
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On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 10:31:57 GMT, Rick Dipper
wrote: I would put it in something waterproof, I would go for the blue mains water pipe, its cheep and tough. I have no idea what's right and wrong. However wouldn't some form of metal conduit be appropriate here? If lightning strikes within 100 yds or so then the cabling is going to pick up the jolt, possibly taking the equipment out both ends. Whereas with a metal conduit then presumably it could soak any charge to earth. Andrew |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:33:38 GMT, "nick smith"
wrote: I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. Thanks Nick I recently needed to do a similar thing and ran a length of 50mm waste pipe with slow bends between the house and the shed. Fittings were solvent welded and left for a day for any traces of solvent to disappear. I then arranged a cable fish through the pipe by tying a piece of rag to a length of string and sucking it through with a vacuum cleaner. A double length of polypropylene cord was pulled through by attaching it to the string and then one length used to pull through a selection of cables inclusing CAT5, phone, etc. but not power (that is separately buried SWA). This leaves one length of cord in the pipe for pulling future cables through if needed or in the event of failure. I used a similar technique between house and garage which is rather further. Since I felt that digging trenches is a pain in the bum, and I could never be sure that I wouldn't want to add or replace cables, for the cost of the pipe (which is pretty cheap anyway), this made good sense. ..andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:27:36 +0100, Andrew McKay
wrote: If lightning strikes within 100 yds or so then the cabling is going to pick up the jolt, possibly taking the equipment out both ends. Whereas with a metal conduit then presumably it could soak any charge to earth. If lightning strikes anywhere within 100yds or so pretty much all your equipment is toast. If it strikes anywhere close enough to introduce significant ground potential gradients (often a km or more) then putting the cable in a metal conduit may help, but if not properly designed can also make things worse. Practically, it isn't going to make much difference. -- Peter Parry. http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/ |
In article ,
Rick Dipper writes: I would put it in something waterproof, I would go for the blue mains water pipe, its cheep and tough. You should assume all underground ducting will fill with water. Condensate will do it eventually. -- Andrew Gabriel |
Thanks all -
As I have both waterpipe and waste pipe lying around I will take Andy Hall's suggestion and use up the waste pipe - I may well want to pull a phone cable through so that seems like a good idea. Its just a short straight run anyway. I think lightning striking close by will toast our house innards with the EMP, with the amount of cabling other than mains we have around the house acting as "aerials", but nothing has ever failed yet. Nick "Andy Hall" wrote in message ... On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:33:38 GMT, "nick smith" wrote: I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. Thanks Nick I recently needed to do a similar thing and ran a length of 50mm waste pipe with slow bends between the house and the shed. Fittings were solvent welded and left for a day for any traces of solvent to disappear. I then arranged a cable fish through the pipe by tying a piece of rag to a length of string and sucking it through with a vacuum cleaner. A double length of polypropylene cord was pulled through by attaching it to the string and then one length used to pull through a selection of cables inclusing CAT5, phone, etc. but not power (that is separately buried SWA). This leaves one length of cord in the pipe for pulling future cables through if needed or in the event of failure. I used a similar technique between house and garage which is rather further. Since I felt that digging trenches is a pain in the bum, and I could never be sure that I wouldn't want to add or replace cables, for the cost of the pipe (which is pretty cheap anyway), this made good sense. .andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:33:38 GMT, "nick smith"
wrote: I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. If this is to carry a signal for a PC or similar then don't rule out the possibility of using a wireless arrangement. Probably a bit more costly seeing as you've got the cable already, but much easier than digging trenches etc. Wireless also isn't susceptible to lightning in the vicinity (though your equipment might still be smouldering aftera close lightning shave). A possible benefit with wireless is that you could work in the garden during the summer months. Andrew |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 16:01:05 +0100, Andrew McKay
wrote: On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 09:33:38 GMT, "nick smith" wrote: I want to run a length of CAT 6 (like CAT 5 but better ?) across part of the lawn (about 10 feet) to the shed - no possibility of a spade going through it or other mechanical damage - is subjection to continuous damp likely to be damaging or should I get away with it ? I can put it in a length of hosepipe if that helps. Its CAT 6 because I bought a reel of it a while back and have some left over. If this is to carry a signal for a PC or similar then don't rule out the possibility of using a wireless arrangement. Probably a bit more costly seeing as you've got the cable already, but much easier than digging trenches etc. Wireless also isn't susceptible to lightning in the vicinity (though your equipment might still be smouldering aftera close lightning shave). A possible benefit with wireless is that you could work in the garden during the summer months. Andrew Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Rick |
Rick Dipper wrote:
Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee -- Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read. |
On 24 Oct 2004 10:42:00 GMT, Huge wrote:
I would put it in something waterproof, I would go for the blue mains water pipe, its cheep and tough. Which is going to cause enormous confusion to anyone who digs it up... I agree, there are standards for the colours of underground services. Or indeed above ground, some berk had run the rising main through some waste pipe here... This pipe was in the way, and not serving any obvious purpoes but did head of in the direction of a drain, hack saw, hisssss..... -- Cheers Dave. pam is missing e-mail |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 14:59:16 GMT, nick smith wrote:
I may well want to pull a phone cable through so that seems like a good idea. Its just a short straight run anyway. Just pull through several lengths of that spare Cat6, you can use it for network, phone, baseband video, all maner of things. Pull them all together, once you get three or four cables in a duct in can get remarkably difficult to pull another through, especially of there are any bends. -- Cheers Dave. pam is missing e-mail |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:14:43 +0100, Lee
wrote: Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee Not to mention spoofing the mac and ip filter (I've seen a chimp do this but not a goat as yet) ;-) T i m |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:14:43 +0100, Lee
wrote: Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee In principle it could be. See http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1792 It also comes with a performance price.... ..andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
T i m wrote:
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:14:43 +0100, Lee wrote: Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee Not to mention spoofing the mac and ip filter (I've seen a chimp do this but not a goat as yet) ;-) T i m I think people are thinking of WEP here. WPA2 (derived from 802.11i) is about as secure as it gets. |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 21:03:41 +0100, Ben wrote:
T i m wrote: On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:14:43 +0100, Lee wrote: Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee Not to mention spoofing the mac and ip filter (I've seen a chimp do this but not a goat as yet) ;-) T i m I think people are thinking of WEP here. WPA2 (derived from 802.11i) is about as secure as it gets. It could be if used correctly. See http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2004...relesswpa.html The problem is that most home use is unlikely to use the full gamut of capabilities because they will be too complex to understand and set up. Products are already being simplified to do this. Most people will end up using PSK and probably with short common dictionary words like their dog's name, so remain vulnerable to fairly simply mounted attacks. ..andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
In uk.d-i-y, T i m wrote:
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:14:43 +0100, Lee wrote: Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Are you suggesting that WPA AES has been broken already? Do you have a link? Lee Not to mention spoofing the mac and ip filter (I've seen a chimp do this but not a goat as yet) ;-) How do you know what MAC to spoof? -- Mike Barnes |
Andy Hall wrote:
The problem is that most home use is unlikely to use the full gamut of capabilities because they will be too complex to understand and set up. Products are already being simplified to do this. Most people will end up using PSK and probably with short common dictionary words like their dog's name, so remain vulnerable to fairly simply mounted attacks. Yes, I admit that I use PSK, but I do have a 30 character passphrase with a mix of numbers. The point is well made though. Lee -- Email address is valid, but is unlikely to be read. |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 18:45:29 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote: Just pull through several lengths of that spare Cat6, you can use it for network, phone, baseband video, all maner of things. Pull them all together, once you get three or four cables in a duct in can get remarkably difficult to pull another through, especially of there are any bends. One of the secrets here is to sprinkle talcum powder over the cable as it enters the ducting. It then glides thru quite easily (usually). Andrew |
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 16:05:06 GMT, Rick Dipper
wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Whilst possible I think that's an extreme point of view. Providing you take reasonable precautions with wireless installations there's little to worry about in my view. If you are paranoid about such things then of course it is a risk, starting from the moment you switch your PC on without it being connected to any wireless equipment. You can buy directional aerials for wireless if need be, so unless the neighbour is in line of sight of the signal it's hardly likely to be an issue. Plus if you think that neighbours being able to eavesdrop on your installation is strictly limited to wireless installations you really need to expand your knowledge base. I did some work with Plesseys some years ago and they proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that anything which isn't installed in a properly secured faraday cage can be intercepted, and the information re-assembled. Signals from monitors, printers, cables etc are used all the time by professional snoopers. Think of a TV - how do you think those guys can sit in their van down the street and tell you which channel you are watching and where the TV is located, before they hit you for license evasion? I grant you that your average neighbour probably isn't likely to go to those extremes, but anything is possible. Andrew |
In message , Steve Firth
writes fRick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Oh FFS here we go again, it's urban legend time. Well Actually .... Someone within range of my living room has such a setup - not even password protected, believe it or not The information contained in this post may not be published in, or used by http://www.diyprojects.info -- geoff |
In message , Steve Firth
writes raden wrote: Someone within range of my living room has such a setup - not even password protected, believe it or not Yes, and? That's a comment on the stupidty of whoever it is owns the router. I was commenting on your urban myth post I was thinking of wandering around with my laptop to trig it and see if they've left the front door open too The information contained in this post may not be published in, or used by http://www.diyprojects.info -- geoff |
"Andrew McKay" wrote in message
... On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 16:05:06 GMT, Rick Dipper wrote: Any all your neighbours can see all your data and use your internet connection, assuming they have got the IQ of a goat, which is all thats needed to break the standard enceyption on this, even if you set it up in the first place. Whilst possible I think that's an extreme point of view. Providing you take reasonable precautions with wireless installations there's little to worry about in my view. If you are paranoid about such things then of course it is a risk, starting from the moment you switch your PC on without it being connected to any wireless equipment. You can buy directional aerials for wireless if need be, so unless the neighbour is in line of sight of the signal it's hardly likely to be an issue. Why buy one? This is DIY after all.... http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html :-) Plus if you think that neighbours being able to eavesdrop on your installation is strictly limited to wireless installations you really need to expand your knowledge base. I did some work with Plesseys some years ago and they proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that anything which isn't installed in a properly secured faraday cage can be intercepted, and the information re-assembled. Signals from monitors, printers, cables etc are used all the time by professional snoopers. Think of a TV - how do you think those guys can sit in their van down the street and tell you which channel you are watching and where the TV is located, before they hit you for license evasion? I grant you that your average neighbour probably isn't likely to go to those extremes, but anything is possible. If you're paranoid, you should be encrypting all of your network traffic anyway, regardless of the medium that is used to carry it. The point about wireless is that it is (in the case of most _home_ installations) relatively easy and cheap to do so. Laptop, wireless card, airsnort (or whatever the current tools are) and a bit of technical knowledge, and you're in there. That said, I wouldn't see security as a primary reason for someone not to go wireless these days. If they were not entirely self-sufficient networking-wise, I'd advise them against it 'cos if it doesn't all magically spring into action first time you plug everything in together, it's completely opaque as to why it doesn't work. Which normally results in a support call to yours truly.... -- Richard Sampson mail me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk |
Plus if you think that neighbours being able to eavesdrop on your installation is strictly limited to wireless installations you really need to expand your knowledge base. I did some work with Plesseys some years ago and they proved beyond any doubt whatsoever that anything which isn't installed in a properly secured faraday cage can be intercepted, and the information re-assembled. Signals from monitors, printers, cables etc are used all the time by professional snoopers. Think of a TV - how do you think those guys can sit in their van down the street and tell you which channel you are watching and where the TV is located, before they hit you for license evasion? I grant you that your average neighbour probably isn't likely to go to those extremes, but anything is possible. The point, Andrew, is that the kind of interception you describe in the first two paras requires relatively specialised knowledge and somewhat specialised kit. "National security" installations take it seriously - that's what "Tempest" shielding is all about; but the chance that your neighbour, or someone walking down the road, has the full van-Eyck kit in their bedrrom, van, or back pocket is pretty unlikely. (And if you're attracting the attention of security services, domestic or foreign, you're Out Of Scope for a uk.d-i-y discussion ;-) Wi-Fi/802.11, on the other hand, is ubiquitous. Even though the lowest-level signal processing could be considered "exotic", that fact doesn't matter a fig: not only complete chipsets but consumer-level products are manufactured and sold in huge volume ("huge" meaning millions a month). This very ubiquity makes "targets" widely available - the chance that as one walks past an office or a row of suburban houses one finds an 802.11 network up and running is quite high. It makes the kit to perform the "interception" (use of the 802.11 over-the-air protocol) widely available, and cheap - even if your laptop or PDA didn't come with Wi-Fi builtin, PCMCIA cards to do WiFi are cheap as chips (30 quid and up). As a result of the relative inattention of the writers of the original WiFi spec to security, the "older" (i.e. still-current) WEP standard, *even when its encryption features are used*, is esay to work around: here, "easy" means "run any one of 50 or more widely-available programs for Windows or Linux or xBSD (whose names you can find with a moment's googling) within range of an in-use 802.11 access point, and with high probability you'll be on that network within a few minutes". That's in the "tough" case where the encryption's been switched on. Many - possibly still most? - access points are run without the encryption facilities turned on, since it makes joining them Harder - someone has to tell everyone what the SuperSekritPassword is. (Since there's a single shared SuperSekritPassword for all those connecting to the access point, the more users you have the more of a pain-in-the-fundament it is to ever *change* that password, too - all the users have to be told the new password, and you can bet it'll be the top-performing salesrep who can't get the updated corporate presentation who'll be inconvenienced by "this new password rubbish" on the morning of A Realy Important Presentation...) Those networks that are set up to allow only "known" joiners, where "known" is based on the MAC address (low-level network-identification number) of the devices considered "known", merely require that you listen for the MAC addresses of devices which are allowed to join, and then when that device shuts up, you set your own device's MAC address to match that of the "authorised" one. Yes, most 802.11 cards allow the MAC address to be set in software, and the join-a-network-who-cares-if-the-owner-wants-you software makes all this techno******** transparent to the wannabe CrackCur. Adding to the dismal picture is the desire of consumer-targetted PC addon manufacturers to have minimal support costs. So, setting their access points to have access control (whether WEP or its less-broken successor WPA) turned on by default is a poor commercial decision: it increases the number of support calls ("I bought this wireless network thing but my laptop can't connect, even though it works at work"). Economically, it's a win for such companies to ship with the access control stuff turned off, but with descriptions in the manual on how to turn it on for those who want to. Duty of care discharged. The final part of "but would this really happen" is the CrackCur's motivation. Does my 'umble home WiFi network really have anything on it that some amoral jerk would want? Well, typically, there are two things on that network the A.J. could be interested in. Firstly, your PeeCee: less the data that's on it - though credit-card numbers are always handy - but more its processing cycles, to use as part of a disposable array of "owned" machines, which the A.J. uses to 'untraceably' attack other targets (e.g. "let's bring down the Microsoft website"; or, "let's threaten to bring down Ladbroke's gambling websites unless they pay us scads of moolah"), or to send 'untraceable' spam from. Those processing cycles are trivially available on nearly all Windows boxes, as they're laughably easy to break into with a huge variety of Own-The-Box tools; and once broken in to, the need for the 802.11 link is finished - from then on the box will connect out to its "master" to say "I'm here, anything need doing, Guv?", and/or sit there listening to be told what to do. Secondly, even without breaking into any machines on the network the A.J. is "visiting", there's usually a connection to The InterWeb on t'other side of the access point. This in itself is a useful resource to the A.J., whether to suck down questionable content without leaving a trail to themselves, or to pump Bad Stuff (e.g. attacks against other machines) up the link, again without ready traceability to themselves. The "motivation" part for a passing A.J. is therefore not that hard to see; though for a neighbour permanently close by, the "hard to detect" thing is weaker - depending on transience and density of neighbourhood; so things are different in leafy suburbia from student halls-of-residence, for example! Oh well. The better-informed will doubtless be along to dismiss this as paranoid rantings or - what was it? ah yes, an Urban Legend. (Poor old Joel Furr must be spinning in his virtual casket...) Stefek |
Mike Barnes wrote:
How do you know what MAC to spoof? Listen for the MAC of nodes which are admitted. Replay that MAC when the talker goes quiet. |
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 00:48:55 +0100, (Steve Firth)
wrote: It takes more than the IQ of a goat to break 128bit WEP, "Any goat with Google" I did it a few years ago. The hardest part was getting DeadRat onto the laptop, because NetStumbler worked under Win2K, but there wasn't a readily downloadable WEP128 breaker. Then it sat in the carpark, collecting a day's traffic until it had enough to work on. Needed to be in the car, because of battery life! |
"Andrew McKay" wrote
| Signals from monitors, printers, cables etc are used all the | time by professional snoopers. Think of a TV - how do you | think those guys can sit in their van down the street and | tell you which channel you are watching and where the TV | is located, before they hit you for license evasion? Mostly they target addresses without licences and listen at the letterbox for the Eastenders theme tune :-) Although it is a bit amazing being inside a TVL detector van and watching the process. Owain |
Owain wrote:
Mostly they target addresses without licences and listen at the letterbox for the Eastenders theme tune :-) Although it is a bit amazing being inside a TVL detector van and watching the process. Less amazing, but more infuriating, is trying to tell the TV licencing crew that a given premiseses does not have, has never had in the last 40 years, and will never while it continues under a given charitable organisation's ownership, any TV Receiving Apparatus. I speak from the heart on this one - there's a place up the Wye Valley owned by the Polish-origin-scouting organisation I'm involved in. Every bleedin' month they send an intimidatingly-written "Do You Realise You Need A TeeVee Lie Sense" letter. Regardless of phone calls (both polite and exasperated), long detailed letters explaining the nature of the premiseseseses, the reason there's no teli (presumably the idea of "immersion" in the context of language learning goes over their heads), and the intermittently-occupied nature of the place making an unannounced visit by any Inspector highly likely to be unproductive (but giving a large number of dates on which the full keyholder will be present), the letters continue to arrive. It seems the outsourcing contract for licence fee collection has copious incentives for "activity", and none for "****ing off the public". Marvellous. The temptation to join an internal WiFi network at their offices (which happen to be based here in Bristol) and make the point (if not the database alterations ;-) directly is one I continue to resist, but... ! Stefek |
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:24:50 +0100, Stefek Zaba
wrote: Owain wrote: Mostly they target addresses without licences and listen at the letterbox for the Eastenders theme tune :-) Although it is a bit amazing being inside a TVL detector van and watching the process. Less amazing, but more infuriating, is trying to tell the TV licencing crew that a given premiseses does not have, has never had in the last 40 years, and will never while it continues under a given charitable organisation's ownership, any TV Receiving Apparatus. I speak from the heart on this one - there's a place up the Wye Valley owned by the Polish-origin-scouting organisation I'm involved in. Every bleedin' month they send an intimidatingly-written "Do You Realise You Need A TeeVee Lie Sense" letter. Regardless of phone calls (both polite and exasperated), long detailed letters explaining the nature of the premiseseseses, the reason there's no teli (presumably the idea of "immersion" in the context of language learning goes over their heads), and the intermittently-occupied nature of the place making an unannounced visit by any Inspector highly likely to be unproductive (but giving a large number of dates on which the full keyholder will be present), the letters continue to arrive. It seems the outsourcing contract for licence fee collection has copious incentives for "activity", and none for "****ing off the public". Marvellous. So wouldn't watching Telewizja Polska on Hotbird not be edifying for the language learning of the young charges? I saw a few of their programs recently and a lot seemed to be locally produced documentaries rather than subtitled American stuff. The temptation to join an internal WiFi network at their offices (which happen to be based here in Bristol) and make the point (if not the database alterations ;-) directly is one I continue to resist, but... ! I guess that setting your SSID to '******s' should find them..... :-) ..andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 00:27:33 +0100, Stefek Zaba
wrote: The point, Andrew, is that the kind of interception you describe in the first two paras requires relatively specialised knowledge and somewhat specialised kit. "National security" installations take it seriously - that's what "Tempest" shielding is all about; but the chance that your neighbour, or someone walking down the road, has the full van-Eyck kit in their bedrrom, van, or back pocket is pretty unlikely. (And if you're attracting the attention of security services, domestic or foreign, you're Out Of Scope for a uk.d-i-y discussion ;-) Wi-Fi/802.11, on the other hand, is ubiquitous. Even though the lowest-level signal processing could be considered "exotic", that fact doesn't matter a fig: not only complete chipsets but consumer-level products are manufactured and sold in huge volume ("huge" meaning millions a month). This very ubiquity makes "targets" widely available - the chance that as one walks past an office or a row of suburban houses one finds an 802.11 network up and running is quite high. It makes the kit to perform the "interception" (use of the 802.11 over-the-air protocol) widely available, and cheap - even if your laptop or PDA didn't come with Wi-Fi builtin, PCMCIA cards to do WiFi are cheap as chips (30 quid and up). As a result of the relative inattention of the writers of the original WiFi spec to security, the "older" (i.e. still-current) WEP standard, *even when its encryption features are used*, is esay to work around: here, "easy" means "run any one of 50 or more widely-available programs for Windows or Linux or xBSD (whose names you can find with a moment's googling) within range of an in-use 802.11 access point, and with high probability you'll be on that network within a few minutes". That's in the "tough" case where the encryption's been switched on. Many - possibly still most? - access points are run without the encryption facilities turned on, since it makes joining them Harder - someone has to tell everyone what the SuperSekritPassword is. (Since there's a single shared SuperSekritPassword for all those connecting to the access point, the more users you have the more of a pain-in-the-fundament it is to ever *change* that password, too - all the users have to be told the new password, and you can bet it'll be the top-performing salesrep who can't get the updated corporate presentation who'll be inconvenienced by "this new password rubbish" on the morning of A Realy Important Presentation...) Those networks that are set up to allow only "known" joiners, where "known" is based on the MAC address (low-level network-identification number) of the devices considered "known", merely require that you listen for the MAC addresses of devices which are allowed to join, and then when that device shuts up, you set your own device's MAC address to match that of the "authorised" one. Yes, most 802.11 cards allow the MAC address to be set in software, and the join-a-network-who-cares-if-the-owner-wants-you software makes all this techno******** transparent to the wannabe CrackCur. Adding to the dismal picture is the desire of consumer-targetted PC addon manufacturers to have minimal support costs. So, setting their access points to have access control (whether WEP or its less-broken successor WPA) turned on by default is a poor commercial decision: it increases the number of support calls ("I bought this wireless network thing but my laptop can't connect, even though it works at work"). Economically, it's a win for such companies to ship with the access control stuff turned off, but with descriptions in the manual on how to turn it on for those who want to. Duty of care discharged. The final part of "but would this really happen" is the CrackCur's motivation. Does my 'umble home WiFi network really have anything on it that some amoral jerk would want? Well, typically, there are two things on that network the A.J. could be interested in. Firstly, your PeeCee: less the data that's on it - though credit-card numbers are always handy - but more its processing cycles, to use as part of a disposable array of "owned" machines, which the A.J. uses to 'untraceably' attack other targets (e.g. "let's bring down the Microsoft website"; or, "let's threaten to bring down Ladbroke's gambling websites unless they pay us scads of moolah"), or to send 'untraceable' spam from. Those processing cycles are trivially available on nearly all Windows boxes, as they're laughably easy to break into with a huge variety of Own-The-Box tools; and once broken in to, the need for the 802.11 link is finished - from then on the box will connect out to its "master" to say "I'm here, anything need doing, Guv?", and/or sit there listening to be told what to do. Secondly, even without breaking into any machines on the network the A.J. is "visiting", there's usually a connection to The InterWeb on t'other side of the access point. This in itself is a useful resource to the A.J., whether to suck down questionable content without leaving a trail to themselves, or to pump Bad Stuff (e.g. attacks against other machines) up the link, again without ready traceability to themselves. The "motivation" part for a passing A.J. is therefore not that hard to see; though for a neighbour permanently close by, the "hard to detect" thing is weaker - depending on transience and density of neighbourhood; so things are different in leafy suburbia from student halls-of-residence, for example! Oh well. The better-informed will doubtless be along to dismiss this as paranoid rantings or - what was it? ah yes, an Urban Legend. (Poor old Joel Furr must be spinning in his virtual casket...) Hi, Wonder if it's possible to set up a home 802.11b network using one PC as a VPN server and the rest as VPN clients. cheers, Pete. |
Someone within range of my living room has such a setup - not even password protected, believe it or not Yes, and? That's a comment on the stupidty of whoever it is owns the router. Quite. And it isn't just domestic premises. I walked down Moorgate from the Bank of England to Moorgate station a few weeks ago with a WiFi sniffer and managed to get connected to 9 different networks. Out of curiosity, what sniffer do you use? |
In message , Stefek Zaba
writes Owain wrote: Mostly they target addresses without licences and listen at the letterbox for the Eastenders theme tune :-) Although it is a bit amazing being inside a TVL detector van and watching the process. Less amazing, but more infuriating, is trying to tell the TV licencing crew that a given premiseses does not have, has never had in the last 40 years, and will never while it continues under a given charitable organisation's ownership, any TV Receiving Apparatus. I keep on getting these to my factory. I also have a grovelling apology letter in response to my writing them a snotty letter telling them to stop wasting my personal TV licence money sending out these letters to me, It didn't stop the letters coming though -- geoff |
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 20:19:43 +0100, Pete C
wrote: Hi, Wonder if it's possible to set up a home 802.11b network using one PC as a VPN server and the rest as VPN clients. cheers, Pete. Of course. Have a look at OpenVPN ..andy To email, substitute .nospam with .gl |
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 19:52:19 GMT, raden wrote:
In message , Stefek Zaba writes Owain wrote: Mostly they target addresses without licences and listen at the letterbox for the Eastenders theme tune :-) Although it is a bit amazing being inside a TVL detector van and watching the process. Less amazing, but more infuriating, is trying to tell the TV licencing crew that a given premiseses does not have, has never had in the last 40 years, and will never while it continues under a given charitable organisation's ownership, any TV Receiving Apparatus. I keep on getting these to my factory. I also have a grovelling apology letter in response to my writing them a snotty letter telling them to stop wasting my personal TV licence money sending out these letters to me, It didn't stop the letters coming though Send them all your other junk mail with no stamp ... T i m |
Andy Hall wrote:
So wouldn't watching Telewizja Polska on Hotbird not be edifying for the language learning of the young charges? I saw a few of their programs recently and a lot seemed to be locally produced documentaries rather than subtitled American stuff. A kind thought, but not out in't' relative wilds o't' Wye Valley - we've more inspiring stuff to do in the glorious greenstuff than sit down in front of the idiotbox ;-) We/they do get to see relevant bits of Polish-language TV at home or the ultimate cruel-and-unusual torture for efnick-descent kids: Saturday morning language school ;-) Stefek |
"Steve Firth" wrote in message ... snip I've been working ina spoosedy secure environment the past few days. I started up my iPaq 2210 to send a mail to a client using Bluetooth and my GPRS phone. snip No you were not, or if you were, I suspect it was most certainly NOT in any secure environment that matters... When I used to work within secure environments (pre Sept 2001) mobile phones were surrendered at the 'reception', I can't imagine that post Sept. 2001 things have got easier ! |
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