I was interviewed yesterday morning (at 7:10, jeesh) by Chris Nolte on AM 1490 WKBV about the "dangers of unsecured wireless networks at home." I already posted some follow-up technical information on the Summersault Weblog, but I thought I'd see if anyone reading here heard the interview? I've not to date thought of that station or time slot as the place to go for the latest technology news and discussion, but perhaps there's a trend I've been missing out on.
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Well, that one got by me, somehow. You have to tell people ahead of time so we can tune in. Any replay possibilities? Some people might call it a podcast, speaking of the news techie things.
Anyway, the suspense is killing me. What are the dangers of unsecured wifi? After having to spend an hour wrestling with my father's laptop and WEP keys every time he came for a visit, I killed my security feature. I admit that I keep no financial data on my home machines (and no work stuff either, if I need to access something, it's on a USB key). But are there other angers? Am I supporting terrorism by leaving my doors open?
Thomas - the link to the Summersault weblog entry and the sites that it links to are a good start for further reading. In general, you're probably not aiding the enemy by leaving your network unsecured, but you could be making life hard for your Internet service provider, and might be opening yourself up to some forms of identity theft.
I agree with you that it's a real pain to give someone temporary access to a secure network - I filter by hardware address AND have a WEP key, so I usually need some advance notice before someone can just "plug in." Maybe in the future there will be a one-time access key that we can hand our visitors, i.e. a USB device they plug in while onsite, or a throw-away (but easy to enter) password that works once and never again.
I don't think WKBV publicly archives their shows, so I'd have to check with them about getting a recording. I'm not sure it would be worth it. 🙂
Sorry I missed the interview. I quit listening to WKBV since they went to 16-18 hours a day of half baked sports broadcasts.