unsecured network

[Imaulle]

My dad and step mom are retired to the beach and my step mom refuses to encrypt their wireless router and does all of my dads personal finances and banking stuff over their Mac desktop via wireless etc.. I've told her it's very bad to do that and she says "people have better stuff to do then to try and snoop into our business" and she also likes sharing the internet with any of the neighbors who may need it...

She is Catholic and pretty much impossible to persuade so help me out here? Is there something I can do to scare her? I don't wanna do anything illegal or break any forum rules... But I'm just worried she's gonna screw my dad out of his retirement or something..

 

[awesomo]

Any form of banking website has their own encryption. I wouldn't worry about those. It's all the insecure login's someone could pick up with ease. I remember a Facebook sniffer for Firefox surfacing a year back. You could walk into Starbucks, scan the network, and log into anyone's Facebook that was currently logged in.

As for screwing your dad out of retirement, that's a whole other story.

 

[dhc014]

Print something to her printer while she's there. If you want to stay legal, get your dad's permission first.

Tell her about wardriving:
WarDriver steals bandwidth for porn (or "why you need to lock down your WiFi")
Wardriving Defined - Why Do I Need to Secure My Wireless Network?

What you should immediately realize is that open wireless networks can be used to conduct crimes. Is your home or business network open? If you use a wireless network in your home or business to connect your computers to the Internet you should be very concerned about how your wireless signal is broadcast.

 

[Chilly]

Make sure she knows she can still give out her WPA2 password if she wants to to anyone she wants to share it with...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

At the very least, make sure the passwords she uses for the bank and 401 (or whatever other finance sites) are unique, different from the ones for their facebook and POP mail.