Unsecure Access Point

Hi all,

Due to the amount of unsecured wireless networks I encounter on switching laptop on at home, I have decided to look at this a bit more

I left my router with wireless security disabled on and tried to connect with a wireless laptop. The XP wireless configuration tool is straightforward and I connect up to my AP, getting IP address lease etc.

But then browse the Internet or home network

This laptop is not joined to home domain. I cannot get any shared folders/computers through Network Places or UNCs

Straight to the Internet? Click on Internet Explorer and it will try and dial my default connections. Take them out, but no Internet. Create new connections - but how am I connecting: not modem or broadband

Strikes me you need more than being able to connect to unsecured Access Point to get on Internet easy, which I had thought was the case

How do I connect to resources once connected to my home Access Point, and it is MY Access Point!!

Surely not join the domain??

you should go into your internet tools and switch the settings to " NEVER DIAL A CONNECTION " then when u go into your exployer it will say " do you want to connect? you hit connect and it will not look for ur modem but for Lan or Wan internet options. In my business I have toi switch almost every customers computer - Lemme know if you still have problems. Bandy

Most unsecure access points are very basic, no domain, all computers can browse the network and the internet. It's very easy to connect and be on the internet in a matter of seconds. It may be that your network isn't as basic as others.

Becareful with connecting to unsecure access points, in some countries they're trying to make it illegal (if it isn't already) to connect to other people's access points, even if they're unsecure

Thanks Guys,

I tried Bandy's advice, and it worked in so far as old connections weren't prompted for. However, no Internet, it times out quite quickly. also cannot ping other computers on network

Is this correct behaviour. Noodles, I have a domain with wireless ap and this laptop I have experimented with is non-domain, as it would be in real life

So, if you have a domain and an unsecure ap, you must be relatively safe?

I have run into the same things you are talking about but there is also a couple questions brought up in my mind because you are talking about a couple things...no internet and safety?

First of all...assuming that you are not trying to acces your own A/P here...If you are seeing an unsecured A/P with your wireless computer (AKA "using the neighbors connection") and you can't get a connection to the internet this is as simple as they have turned off the modem to the net or a linked computer in AdHoc mode. Your computer looks for network connections first, looks on those connections for any internet availability, and then defaults to dial up connections that may exist if all else fails. The unsecured A/P may not have that needed internet availability and so it defaults to dialup. My neighbor had the same deal going. Had an A/P that was on steroids or something as it blasted throughout the neighborhood but she only had the modem kicked on when she was using the internet and left the A/P blazing 24/7 nearly wiping out all the other neighbors wireless links...

It is also possible that any computers on that A/P do not have any kind of domain or file sharing set up which is why you can't browse any computers on that A/P. If there is any kind of domain specified and any kind of sharing set up on a computer on that A/P you could simply go to "Network Neighborhood" in Microshaft XP OS and you could scan for these computers and they would gracefully show you their nickers...with smiles on to be sure. Gotta love that Microsoft security!

With that said I will throw in the "safety" part of the message and that is if you are using unsecured A/P's you need to do two things: 1) Get a good firewall program to couple with your spyware and antivirus gear(never know when some punk is sitting around waiting for you to come in so he can scan YOUR computer while you are visiting...don't laugh, happens all the time). 2) Check up on local laws about using unsecured A/P's. In the US there has been very little ground covered in this arena legally. You can drive down the road, pick up an A/P and cruise the net or drop a few emails and move on without too much issue. BUT...as soon as you scan that A/P for systems and/or try and view any shares that may be erroneously available you are now in violation of hacking laws and that is a HUGE deal.

If you want to stay off the legal radar you need to make sure that you are following the local laws. If you operate an unsecured A/P in your home or business, don't be suprised to find that someone is using it to transmit virus email from across the street from a mobile server, spam mail relay or the neighbor is a kidde porn addict that is using your A/P for an untraceable link to the goods that will get you thrown in the pokey for a near eternity. I highly suggest to anyone that they should secure their A/P. Yes... stupid people exist and they exploit that super zippy internet connection you paid high dollar for.

Now there is also the odd chance that I read that whole thing wrong and that you are just trying to figure out how safe your A/P would be with your computers running on it and no encryption... if thats the case you still can use what I have given you as it is the "neighbors" view of your system and I'd still say "LOCK THAT BAD BOY UP" and don't let your A/P play with others. It could come home with bad company when you are not looking.:-)

Nice points and well heeded. This is indeed my access point, which I have since tightened right up. I knew the config of network so filesharing was ok, there was/is a domain. But my point really was, if i can't connect to internet and other machines, and I know the state of network, and i'm sitting in the same room, how can anyone else!!

I gained an IP from ap, attempts to access the Internet were shortlived timeouts and no filesharing/browsing - even with the known IPs and computernames of hosts on my network, on the same subnet

My confusion still is if I was doing something wrong, and I had to have been, as an unsecure ap is as has been said above. In a nutshell, i haven't found it possible to connect to Internet or browse my network, even though I have an IP from an unsecure AP

I am understanding this better now. You trying to get internet on your own A/P. and view files of others on your A/P...

First of all what kind of internet do you have? All broadband and DSL companies have ways to make your life miserable. Some companies require you to use one specific IP address to access their services. For instance, assuming this is at home and you had someone come in and hook up the service at your residence, they probably set it up using ONE specific computer. Now that they have left you have decided to use an A/P. Is this correct? If not stop here because the rest is unimportant...

If so...lets continue:-) You can have basically have two types of service. One is what I call direct service where the computer uses its MAC address as its key to get service and as long as that computer connects to your modem, your game. OR...it uses some sort of authentication like PPoE, L2TP or what ever.

Either way you will need to go into your A/P and either clone the MAC address of the system that they used to set up your service or change the settings of your A/P to login to the service. My broadband provider uses PPoE service and I have a user name and password that the router has to give to be allocated an IP address on the system. I have also used companies that used MAC address recognition as their key. If this does not strike a bell then you may need to ask your provider.

Is this any help so far? I will continue as soon as we can get internet rolling.

What kind of A/P are you using and what kind of service are you connected to?

D&C

Thanks for sticking by,

hadn't considered the issues you raise as have had little trouble using access point both on the wire and remotely previously

my router uses PPoE, a username/password to connect

All wired computers have no trouble using internet or browsing. They can get an IP from routers DHCP scope, my own, or use static IPs

Have also had a wireless XP professional browse the network and Internet, using all authentication/encryption WEP/WPA/Radius

However, this laptop was already a member of my domain

The laptop i now try and use cannot browse any network. It is XP home, and gets an IP from router DHCP, but no browsing. It is not a domain member

It all comes back to my initial query about how computers can just hook up to AP and use it. My findings are that unless they know a bit more about the network i.e .domain name and how to join, they can't use resources

Unless there is something in XP home that is stopping me connecting to the AP. I can't at the moment, with or without security enabled

I understand what you are getting at now. Its just the laptop that can't connect. Thats a weird one.

I have two laptops (5 actually but we won't go there :-) I have used two of them for war driving. One is Home and the other is Pro. Both work fine for drive up and acquire type connections. I have used internet on unsecured netwroks all over the place and had no problem at all connecting. Matter of fact I had a network of routers that I used all over town to check email. Got rid of my highspeed NIC because it was expensive and there is so many open networks all over Seattle that there was no reason to have that card anymore. (Note...all the A/P's that I used were left open for this type of service:-) clearing throat...hmmm. Thanks to all those who did...fortunatley I was not running rogue gear with bad intentions.

The computers that connect from outside don't require a "domain" to be assigned to them. The domain is purely for connection to other computers on the network. Your computer is assigned a IP address and that is what is routed...not the domain. You can basically be connected to a router and be invisible to anyone unless they are looking for you on there.

Now if you are trying to share anything over that connection you have to have domain assigned. Why your laptop has gone completey DOA in the networking department is strange...but it is Microshaft after all:-)

That is then a problem for Microsoft... or a hard drive reformat and reinstall. When the going gets rough...get reformatted is the Windows motto I think... Yeah thats it!

Ha ha D&C, nice points again and well heeded..no need for reformat I know so some advice to get me straight about hooking up to ap in my situation is what's needed.

Can connect when I set client up as domain member, and with encryption/authentication, Group Policies Radius etc

These are XP professional clients i can work

But when I try as I might be outside your house, with an unsecure ap which is 'open', then no go - This is with this XP home laptop

All came about as a test against how easy it would be to hack my ap, and left with the same old, boring question: These unsecure aps look secure to me - I can't connect

What's the problem - XP Home, not being domain member

I obviously don't know

re-read, forgive me...so not a domain issue. So if i get an IP from router, why only 2 bars of internet explorer progress bar and then 'page cannot be displayed' web page? everytime

If I had to guess I'd say it was something with XP's wireless driver but again I can't say for sure. Were you ever able to connect to that AP with this laptop wirelessly? Can you get internet with a cable(wired directly to it)? If you can get the net wired but not wireless then it is completely in the wireless drivers. If you can't get it either way then you have a problem with the TCP/IP software on the computer and I am completely clueless as to how to fix that

Either way its related to the software...I always end up just reformatting when it gets screwy like that since there is no cheap way to solve that problem. I have never had any hardcore geeks around when I needed them or didn't have the right currency to hire them...computer hardware, cash, Twinkies...whatever:-) Try the troubleshooting above and maybe we can fall on a solution, or at least know where the problem may be.

D&C, thanks very much..i was able to resolve my issue whilst wired up to the network so there is something wrong with the wireless setup of the laptop. Know what I'm looking at now, so thanks

Your welcome:-)...glad I could help.

Hi there

I'm comming in late here, but i will add my 2 cents. I have found in the past that when you have a secure encrypted WLAN connection set up on your laptop and then just go and turn off the security on the AP, the profile on your laptop still tries to apply the encrytion key as stored in is profile for that SSID. What seems to happen is the you can connect (authenticate and associate) but the laptop still sends the data encrypted ,as per the profile stored in the windows zero configuration utility and the AP doesn’t respond as it's encrption is off. To fix this in the past I have just gone into the wireless profiles and deleted the one for the access point and reconnected afresh and then all is fine.

Hello All,

I too am getting a list of detected networks in London UK:
belkin54g
CAMELOT
bunco_1
TOTORO
shapes
SKY89460
BYHomeHub-23E
The first two are unsecured, the rest security-enabled (shapes and SKY are WPA whatever that means)

I'm new to wifi, so belkin looks like a neighbour's router (what range does it have?) sometimes the signal is weak
CAMELOT is the same name as the National Lottery connector and is only sometimes listed.
The rest, I guess you have to pay for access to - BT is obviously British Telecom and Sky is the satellite TV people, but how do I find out who runs the others? belkin has three (out of 5) green bars, shapes has one, TOTORO has 2 and BT one. Ultimately, is it worth swapping to wifi instead of my current Virgin broadband? Thanks in anticipation