Protecting your wireless network with a password won't stop hackers
Unfailingly, the last thing to fall into place after you've moved house is your internet connection. My live-in tech support and I moved more than a month ago, yet it wasn't until last weekend that the broadband finally came online. Admittedly, delays had been brought on by internal disputes as to whether boycotting BT was an effective form of protest against persistent monopoly practices in the telecommunications market. But that's another column. Even after these disputes were resolved, it took the company two weeks to switch on our network.
Throughout this Lent of connectivity, my laptop taunted me with the several dozen security-enabled wireless networks that, had I the 26-digit hexadecimal network key required, were mine for the taking. But I am yet to be convinced that, when it comes to striking up friendships, asking your new neighbour for this piece of digital goodwill is as useful a gambit as asking for a cup of sugar.
So it was with some personal interest that I read the stories last month of a man and a woman, both of whom were arrested in Redditch for piggybacking on the unsecured wireless networks of unsuspecting citizens. Such practices were made illegal by the Communications Act 2003; they were charged and cautioned for "dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service".
Some commentators took this opportunity to remind people to secure their wireless networks in order to protect themselves against identity theft, or having their computer hijacked by those wishing to download illicit material. But the geek perspective on open v closed wi-fi is a little more nuanced than this.
First, it's important to realise that sharing is a big part of geek culture, and that goes for bandwidth as much as anything else. More technically, keeping wireless networks open is one of the central requirements for wireless mesh networking, a distributed system that creates co-operative, community-driven wi-fi internets. This type of networking gets both geeks and global development types going, thanks to its ability to establish low-cost, resilient internet access across hard-to-reach places. Then there's the privacy argument - that sharing your network makes it harder for anyone to spy on your surfing habits just by looking at the traffic that originates from your IP address.
If this all sounds a little scary from a security perspective, that's because it is. But the point to take home is that securing your wireless network won't really help. Hackers can easily break the protocols normally used to secure wireless networks. To keep your personal data really secure using wi-fi, you need to secure "further up the stack", implementing wonderful things such as SSH tunnels and VPN endpoints. Of course, unless you have live-in tech support, that might be a little tricky.
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