Connecting to a open network...

[SilentZero]

Well today my wife and I went to the WIC (state aid) and while I was waiting I powered on my PDA. The PDA auto-connected to their network which was wide open and not secured. As soon as this happened I reported it to the people working in the office and they were shocked that I was able to connect. While they were telling each other about it they sounded like I had done something wrong by just connecting. I did nothing but connect (which technically the PDA did on its own), and then reported it to the staff, so did I do anything wrong? Can the network staff try to cover their butts and accuse me of doing something wrong when I really didn't? I am just starting to worry that maybe I should have minded my own business and not reported it, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, as I know nothing of things of this nature and am in the dark on what I should do.

Update: Just got off the phone with the network admin that handles that office and he told me that they know about the problem and they have to leave the network open because of various issues they have encrypting it. He just said thanks for reporting it and they are working to fix it.

 

[bsobel]

Sad, just sad (not you, the state and the inability to get encryption and a proper secure wireless network working)

 

[Need4Speed]

Originally posted by: bsobel
Sad, just sad (not you, the state and the inability to get encryption and a proper secure wireless network working)

yep. its unfortunate that some people just cant follow a simple setup guide that is provided with most wireless equipment. I can't even tell you how many AP's I have found that belong to businesses that are wide open...one of the worst cases I had seen was a jewlery store around the corner from me...wide open and broadcasting everything. Being the nice guy I am I reported it...I got the same reaction as the OP.

I wont but myself into the majority since I would consider myself somewhat of a security nut, but with a linksys WAP54 and some spare parts I setup a wireless and wired network at my house that I feel is secure enough that even an ambitous hacker is going to have a hard time getting in. The cost was a couple hours worth of my time and some old pcs.

my wireless segment is setup like this:

my wireless security:

1. Disable SSID broadcast, set SSID to random caps and lowercase
2. Enable WPA security on WAP, using RADIUS authentication against freeRadius
3. strong WPA secret
4. wireless network is on a separate subnet from my wired network and physically separate using ASL
5. no DHCP in wireless zone
6. MAC address filtering on Wireless
7. PPTP VPN to the wired network should I ever need access to filesharing

here is some more detailed info on the key machines on the network:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=36&threadid=1551697&enterthread=y