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Wireless security Question

A

AcidTone

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
Messages
378
Im looking into a wireless ISP near my house and in my research I have found that they use no encryption on there signal. This makes me kinda leary to order there service. They are the only broadband in my area that can get signal to my house and I really need to have a decent connection so I can VPN to my compter at work. My question is do any of the programs like anonymizer (www.anonymizer.com) actually work. I know that people have already been out sniffing this signal, a friend of mine who is using another ISP and lives near me has had two different mac address sniff his connection in the past 3 weeks. I have asked them why no encryption and they basicly told me it was useless. (which i can see he has a point but I still like to think i have some sort of security when using the connection.) Any suggestions on what i could do to make my connection have some sort of security?
 
AcidTone said:
Im looking into a wireless ISP near my house and in my research I have found that they use no encryption on there signal. This makes me kinda leary to order there service. They are the only broadband in my area that can get signal to my house and I really need to have a decent connection so I can VPN to my compter at work. My question is do any of the programs like anonymizer (www.anonymizer.com) actually work. I know that people have already been out sniffing this signal, a friend of mine who is using another ISP and lives near me has had two different mac address sniff his connection in the past 3 weeks. I have asked them why no encryption and they basicly told me it was useless. (which i can see he has a point but I still like to think i have some sort of security when using the connection.) Any suggestions on what i could do to make my connection have some sort of security?
Click to expand...

Since its your ISP link that is wireless don't worry about it. Well, maybe more like, know that you can't do anything about it.

Anything that goes across that link is aready destined for the internet where anyone in (virtually) the entire world can see it. Any traffic that you want secured should already be encrypted before it gets that far.
 
From what I understood the anonymizer program which is install on your system conects to there servers using a ssl connection, so the link between my house and the ISP's access point on the water tower would be encrypted (in theroy). Then its sent to there servers and directed to where it has to go. That is how I read it, im not big into encryption and SSL stuff.
 
Are you worried that people are going to hack into your computer via the ISP connection? Or are you worried that the date groing from your house to the internet via the ISP connection will get stolen?
 
AcidTone said:
Im looking into a wireless ISP near my house and in my research I have found that they use no encryption on there signal. This makes me kinda leary to order there service. They are the only broadband in my area that can get signal to my house and I really need to have a decent connection so I can VPN to my compter at work. My question is do any of the programs like anonymizer (www.anonymizer.com) actually work. I know that people have already been out sniffing this signal, a friend of mine who is using another ISP and lives near me has had two different mac address sniff his connection in the past 3 weeks. I have asked them why no encryption and they basicly told me it was useless. (which i can see he has a point but I still like to think i have some sort of security when using the connection.) Any suggestions on what i could do to make my connection have some sort of security?
Click to expand...

What kind of wireless connection is it? I have a wireless Internet connection but it's some kind of Point-to-Point connection. Not an 802.11 type connection.
 
EQTakeOffense said:
Are you worried that people are going to hack into your computer via the ISP connection? Or are you worried that the date groing from your house to the internet via the ISP connection will get stolen?
Click to expand...

QFT. This is critical as it will define how you should protect yourself.
 
Also, if the OP is using a VPN into work, then it will be encrypted over the VPN. That connection will be safe, but he will still need to worry about getting attacked and standard surfing on the web being browsable.
 
sandmanx said:
Also, if the OP is using a VPN into work, then it will be encrypted over the VPN. That connection will be safe, but he will still need to worry about getting attacked and standard surfing on the web being browsable.
Click to expand...

Not neccessarily. If its merely an IPSec tunnel, then its possible it could only use AH, which doesn't provide for confidentiality. However, ESP does (encryption).
 
Im not worried about people hacking my computer. I have a smooth wall fire wall up and running along with a router with nat support. Im more worried about my data going over the connection.Im not sure abouit the specifics of the wireless type im just getting into that kinda stuff. I administer wire based networks.
 
AcidTone said:
Im not worried about people hacking my computer. I have a smooth wall fire wall up and running along with a router with nat support. Im more worried about my data going over the connection.Im not sure abouit the specifics of the wireless type im just getting into that kinda stuff. I administer wire based networks.
Click to expand...

Don't let NAT fool you into a false sense of security...NAT is not a security device, period. Look up Inverse Mapping to see what I mean.

Waaaay too many people are falling into this trap that because they have a NATted connection that they're safe from the outside world.
 
You know I knew that and I have no idea why i put that in there. Posted that this morning when woke up, wasnt quite awake yet. Any ways the point of that post was to just say that im not worried about my computer getting hacked, I have a firewall for that. My main concern is the data being sent over the wireless signal. And yes i relize that almost all data can be sniffed wire or not but I feel that the encryption helps to a point. Im actually going to run AirSnort tonight and see if and what i can pick up from the tower.
 
BobSutan said:
Don't let NAT fool you into a false sense of security...NAT is not a security device, period. Look up Inverse Mapping to see what I mean.

Waaaay too many people are falling into this trap that because they have a NATted connection that they're safe from the outside world.
Click to expand...

I am not sure how you can say that because while NAT in and of itself is not a security shield, NAT is coupled (probably 99.99% of the time) with routers which block which all incoming ports by default. But I would rather have a HW NAT firewall than a software secured DMZ any day! The bottom line is that NAT has been damn near invaluable to solving 2 huge problems with the internet:

1) Security (from a home user perspective)
2) Lack of IP addresses.
 
AcidTone said:
You know I knew that and I have no idea why i put that in there. Posted that this morning when woke up, wasnt quite awake yet. Any ways the point of that post was to just say that im not worried about my computer getting hacked, I have a firewall for that. My main concern is the data being sent over the wireless signal. And yes i relize that almost all data can be sniffed wire or not but I feel that the encryption helps to a point.
Click to expand...

Hate to change the subject but....

what are you doing that you are sooo concerned with people finding out anyway?
Any shopping or $$ transactions are SSL so you do not need to worry about unencrypted signals.


hrmmm....
 
I just dont like people being able to see my data what ever it may be that im doing...... Surfing Por.......i mean news sites ect......... ;)
 
Mysogonist said:
I am not sure how you can say that because while NAT in and of itself is not a security shield, NAT is coupled (probably 99.99% of the time) with routers which block which all incoming ports by default. But I would rather have a HW NAT firewall than a software secured DMZ any day! The bottom line is that NAT has been damn near invaluable to solving 2 huge problems with the internet:

1) Security (from a home user perspective)
2) Lack of IP addresses.
Click to expand...

Your correct that NAT is usually coupled with something that does in fact add security. My point is that NAT in of itself is not security, pure and simple. It was only created for one single purpose: to alleviate the shortage of IP addresses worldwide (until IPv6 could be rolled out en mass). Because NAT did such a good job the IPv6 deployment was pushed to the backburner, probably far longer than it should have been IMO.
 
BobSutan said:
Because NAT did such a good job the IPv6 deployment was pushed to the backburner, probably far longer than it should have been IMO.
Click to expand...

Couldn't be more true!
 
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