QOTD: Have You Ever Stolen Someone's WiFi?

[anamaniac]

I've only used someone else' wifi when my connection was down.
I never even thought of checking whether or not anyone was stealing my net for a year... turns out, a lot were.
I mac-assigned, and that works well. The routers wifi no longer works, and they cost too much to replace, so the laptops in my house now use cords.

I checked my neighbors one day, 14 people were on it... I live in a retirement community...

One of my brothers didn't pay for his wifi for years. Just used anyones and everyones who was unprotected.

I have never attempted to break into a secure network though, or use a sniffer for hidden networks. I have had no reason to.

 

[dacman61]

I have a sweet Bi-Quad directional antenna aiming down the street attached to my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router, running DD-WRT in client bridge mode, then I have a Linksys WRT350N wireless router with an Ethernet cable hooked up to its WAN port and it runs to my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 to port 2. Between my Buffalo and their Belkin wireless router I get an OK signal that ranges around 18-48Mbps. I wish they were closer so I could get a more reliable signal, but all of the closer wireless access points are encrypted. These people didn't even change the default password on their wireless router config page. I made some improvements to help slightly better the signal quality.

I got a sweet set up for "borrowing" wireless internet, since I'm currently out of a job. Once I get a job lined up here shortly then I'll go legit. I don't download stuff or do other things to hog bandwidth while I'm trying to conserve money.

 

[blarneypete]

[citation][nom]hardwarekid9756[/nom]I wasn't really BlackHacking as my goal was to raise awareness of router login info...but I definitely wasn't WhiteHacking either ^.^ Just call me a Grey Cap ^.^[/citation]

Black Hat, White Hat, Red Hat.

 

[kamkal]

Usually only when my own internet is down or I am waiting for internet to be installed.

 

[manicmalki]

I have been knowen to liberate a cup of wifi every now and then. However only unsecured. If I had the gear I would set up a home network for my desk top and the lappys secured and put out a unsecured network. Share the wealth but god help you if I find you waring on my secure network to trying to get in one of my pc god help you.

 

[ecook]

I have never, as of yet, used anyone's wireless except my own. I have not only a password but use MAC filtering as well. I have setup several of my neighbors with the same thing. They didn't even know they were unprotected. Most know what I did for a living but some are new to the area and were more than happy to let me set them up. I have used public wifi at airports and such.

 

[Guest]

My 8 year old knows how to check to make sure the wifi is connected on her computer, and she calls to my attention that one of our neighbor's wifi SSID was called "Mine B*tch F*ck You." I noticed it was unsecure, so I connected, typed in the routers IP... what do you know, its a Linksys with the default pw of admin still set.

So I decided to change the default IP and admin's password, changed the SSID to "Mine Now", enabled MAC filtering, and disabled the local ports. The idiot never figured out how to reset the router, I think he just assumed it died and went and bought a Netgear. I really wanted to just flash it with a corrupt image, but I couldn't bring myself up to such devious things, and I figured making him go through the trouble of resetting and configuring it would be worth it.

Oh well.

 

[M3d]

If it's out in the ether and not encrypted it's fair game. I did it at my brother in law's house a couple of times when we visited. I eventually got tired of it and bought them a wireless router making sure it was protected.

I even set up my sister with free internet for almost a year compliments of one of her neighbors. Really, i don't feel guilty or in any way ashamed.

 

[dotaloc]

i only recently started encountering secured APs. i've never had a laptop, and always hard-wired my towers until i moved from my house into our new apartment...and didn't have the luxury of being able to drill holes wherever i pleased.

i still had a little 'b' band router, though, that i've used for a few years now and it works for my recently issued work laptop. this article did remind me to switch from WEP to WPA after my recent foray into WEP/WPA hacking...white hat reasons, of course. ;-p

for the record...my verdict. WEP is crap -- usually goes down in 5 mins...WPA can be good with an obscure key...but ANYTHING will keep 90%+ of leechers out of your AP, my guess.

in summary, yes.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Umm, I would consider it to be a very bad move for my own security. Kibo alone knows what is floating around on unsecured nets.
When I have to use a public one for a convention or meeting, I take an image backup of the machine beforehand, scan and save new documents after, and then restore the machine's image. Presto, any piggbacked malware is gone.

 

[theramman]

I just moved and ive secretly bummed off our duplex beside us for awhile, BUT just intill we got ours Thats why I secure my internet.

 

[Guest]

This topic is quite annoying, in my area there are so many unsecured wirelesses and the idiots forget to change their modem defaults too, so many a time I've just had fun looking at who's on their networks and what happening.
The thing is, atleast here in Australia, when you get a modem and an internet connections it usually setups either basic protection like WEP or your given instructions too, if people cant do that or take it off, you've therefore made it public and available to me and others, and thats your problem.

 

[Guest]

I forgot to add, even the local supermarket has left their WiFi open and I can log in to each of the cash registers machines. WTF?!