When decorating don't forget this, to stop wifi hackers

[simie]

Where do you post something like this?

What do think to this -

http://www.forcefieldwireless.com/products.html


Here is another company that makes similar products for US Government.

http://www.eccosorb.com/catalog/eccoshield/index.asp

What if you want to wall paper?

Available in what colours?

[Westside guy]

You'd want to be careful and not paint any interior walls with this, since it'd kill your room-to-room wireless signal strength as well.

[Lacero]

Why? Just turn off SSID broadcast and enable WEP with a 128-bit passkey. Saves a lot of time and effort. Maybe turn on the wi-fi firewall while you're at it. Takes less than 1 minute.

[simie]

I think that the company should rename the product and call it

Paint for the Paranoid!

[Sun Baked]

Cool an alternative for tinfoil and copper plate, I wonder how well it adheres to skin.

[mkrishnan]

Cool an alternative for tinfoil and copper plate, I wonder how well it adheres to skin.

If you paint a piece of paper with it, and well, everyone knows how to make a hat from a piece of paper, then you have a perfect shield against the signals the government is trying to beam into your brain! :eek:

[Apple Hobo]

The CIA has special windows for these kinds of situations. I wonder what else they have... :cool:

[stoid]

Why? Just turn off SSID broadcast and enable WEP with a 128-bit passkey. Saves a lot of time and effort. Maybe turn on the wi-fi firewall while you're at it. Takes less than 1 minute.

Ever heard of wardriving? A friend of mine really into Wi-Fi hacking introduced it to me. He's got a laptop running Linux, and a really expensive Wi-Fi card, and we have yet to run into a network he hasn't been able to crack. If he can get close enough (often outside the house on the street) and you are using your Wi-Fi, he can find the SSID and passively collect enough packets to hack the passkey in about 5 minutes. Granted the decryptor for the passkey usually needs to run overnight to get the code, but going to consecutive nights, and you can get hacked. This paint is the first thing I've seen that could really put a damper onto Wi-Fi hacking.

[Savage Henry]

Granted the decryptor for the passkey usually needs to run overnight to get the code....Man, those sound like some serious rock n' roll evenings out! :) Fortunately I have a lady so my time is alternatively occupied ;) !
In reality, I'm barely 'on' long enough to boil a kettle, to combat such notorious WiFi thieves, which aint no guarantee for security by any lengths, but is still a bit more comfortable.

[virividox]

Ever heard of wardriving? A friend of mine really into Wi-Fi hacking introduced it to me. He's got a laptop running Linux, and a really expensive Wi-Fi card, and we have yet to run into a network he hasn't been able to crack. If he can get close enough (often outside the house on the street) and you are using your Wi-Fi, he can find the SSID and passively collect enough packets to hack the passkey in about 5 minutes. Granted the decryptor for the passkey usually needs to run overnight to get the code, but going to consecutive nights, and you can get hacked. This paint is the first thing I've seen that could really put a damper onto Wi-Fi hacking.

some people have too much time on their hands

[Westside guy]

Ever heard of wardriving? A friend of mine really into Wi-Fi hacking introduced it to me. He's got a laptop running Linux, and a really expensive Wi-Fi card, and we have yet to run into a network he hasn't been able to crack. If he can get close enough (often outside the house on the street) and you are using your Wi-Fi, he can find the SSID and passively collect enough packets to hack the passkey in about 5 minutes. Granted the decryptor for the passkey usually needs to run overnight to get the code, but going to consecutive nights, and you can get hacked. This paint is the first thing I've seen that could really put a damper onto Wi-Fi hacking.

Yeah, that's what WPA is for - because WEP is fatally flawed. Any script kiddie can hack WEP using easily available tools. That's not exactly news... ;)

So far WPA has proven to be secure though, as long as you don't pick a weak password. But weak passwords can be a problem for ANY security on anything.

[Rocksaurus]

Yeah, that's what WPA is for - because WEP is fatally flawed. Any script kiddie can hack WEP using easily available tools. That's not exactly news... ;)

So far WPA has proven to be secure though, as long as you don't pick a weak password. But weak passwords can be a problem for ANY security on anything.

How about a MAC filter?

[Westside guy]

How about a MAC filter?

MAC addresses can be forged, at least with some wireless cards. And I believe MAC addresses can be sniffed even on a WPA network (so it's possible to figure out what address to use when forging).

Thing is, even with the shortcomings of WEP and MAC filtering and whatnot, they're certainly not worthless. They won't stop a real "I've got absolutely no personal life" script kiddie or true hacker; but they will prevent the neighbors from abusing your internet connection.

[Mr. Anderson]

well, painting the outside walls is fine, but you'd also have to do something with the windows as well....

And this might not be that big of an issue today, but it will probably get a lot more important in the years to come when it won't take you overnight to find the key.....

D

[simie]

If you live in an apartment block, do you have to paint the floor as well ?

[thecow]

I purposefully have my wifi signal unencrypted. Mainly because I'm too lazy to do it and there are about 2 houses in range of my router. The signal goes all the way to my friends house which is about 200 feet away with a stock linksys router. If I turn on windows file sharing we can share large files across the road at decent speeds without me having to drag my external HD t his house. His dad's laptop gets a 2/5 bar signal at his house.

Anyway I think that I would notice a suspicious car that is in range of my router and I don't really care that much if people leach off of my bandwidth.

Edit: If you actually wanted to paint all of your outside walls with that stuff it would be really expensive. Not worth it.

[virividox]

I purposefully have my wifi signal unencrypted. Mainly because I'm too lazy to do it and there are about 2 houses in range of my router. The signal goes all the way to my friends house which is about 200 feet away with a stock linksys router. If I turn on windows file sharing we can share large files across the road at decent speeds without me having to drag my external HD t his house. His dad's laptop gets a 2/5 bar signal at his house.

Anyway I think that I would notice a suspicious car that is in range of my router and I don't really care that much if people leach off of my bandwidth.

Edit: If you actually wanted to paint all of your outside walls with that stuff it would be really expensive. Not worth it.

for the average home user its not that big of an issue, unless they work from the home or do a lot of internet transactions.

but for a business that could be transimiting data thats private such precautions would be necessary.

[Sun Baked]

If you paint a piece of paper with it, and well, everyone knows how to make a hat from a piece of paper, then you have a perfect shield against the signals the government is trying to beam into your brain! :eek:Paper hats in the world of designer labels, what are you trying to do send them into withdrawl.

This stuff is expensive $40-75 gallon or about $40 per 5 gallon bucket extra for the additive alone. :eek:

Takes quite a bit to paint a house, and they don't even tell you it takes a few coats -- so multiply the paint calculations you get a Home Depot by a couple/few to see how many gallons it will take.

[feakbeak]

I once saw an episode of the ScreenSavers where they tested this paint out. It didn't even work that well. It decreased their signal strength a bit, but you could still get a connection through the paint. I suppose if you used several coats it might be useful, but it is expensive and a real pain to implement. For the time and money you'd be investing you might as well just get your home wired, it is faster, more reliable and you don't have to worry about neighboring script kiddies or war drivers.

Aside from people possibly hogging your bandwidth what are you terribly worried about? Even if they get on your network they would still have to break your Windows / OS X / Linux security to compromise your computers and that is a lot more difficult than breaking WEP. I suppose you might be worried about illegal activity going out from your WAN IP.

The bottom line is that current wi-fi security keeps the honest people honest. Those intent on doing harm will usually find a way to do it, just a matter of how easy you make it for them. This paint is definitely for the paranoid. Even if you paint up your entire home with this junk, they could just break in and steal your computer. If you're going to use this paint, I recommend you build an underground lair about 60 ft below ground. Sure it'll cost more, but it is more secure and way cooler! :cool:

[Nickygoat]

Better still build a Faraday cage - nothing will escape. Of course your mobile won't work but is that bad? Painting a tinfoil hat with this should help no end :p

[simie]

"No maintenance is required for DefendAir Radio Shield paint additive if applied with flat latex paint according to the manufacturer's instructions on the label."

What latex on your walls - what is this world coming to.

[Mantat]

Better still build a Faraday cage - nothing will escape. Of course your mobile won't work but is that bad? Painting a tinfoil hat with this should help no end :p

Yep the cage is the solution, but I dont know the length of the waves so if they are small it could be useless...

Btw, for people who think that securing your wireless router is useless, it is not! The guy who is so proud of having a friend who hacks-in home network might sound cool, but people do these kind of things for:
- illegal download
- illegal sharing
and possibly the worst:
- access to pedophilia network!

Just imagine this: the cops bang on your door, you are charged for visiting pedo site and they have the ISP record to prove it. Good luck dude! Your wife / friends / neigbours will all know about it and your reputation is done!

There are case like these regulary around here and the only way out is if there is any log of the MAC adress...

This is why my network is supersecure... and so should yours!

[simie]

http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2004/0712wizards1.html

Thiis is an article about potentially securing a wifi network in a public place, such as the local library.

[mkrishnan]

Paper hats in the world of designer labels, what are you trying to do send them into withdrawl.Z

Well, I was going to use some designer stationary! :D Hmmm...perhaps Michael Graves. :p

[jsw]

Btw, for people who think that securing your wireless router is useless, it is not! The guy who is so proud of having a friend who hacks-in home network might sound cool, but people do these kind of things for:
- illegal download
- illegal sharing
and possibly the worst:
- access to pedophilia network!

Just imagine this: the cops bang on your door, you are charged for visiting pedo site and they have the ISP record to prove it. Good luck dude! Your wife / friends / neigbours will all know about it and your reputation is done!

That is exactly why I leave my wireless network completely unsecured.

I can sit in my driveway, using an old, stolen laptop I stash in the woods, happily downloading pirated copies of Golden Girls and perusing my favorite goat-on-goat porn site, all under the cover of plausible deniability.

[PickledSquirrel]

What latex on your walls - what is this world coming to.

50 layers or so should provide you with nice soft walls for when space-bunnies comes conduct medical experiments on you again.

-Squirrel

[greatdevourer]

Why? Just turn off SSID broadcast and enable WEP with a 128-bit passkey. Saves a lot of time and effort. Maybe turn on the wi-fi firewall while you're at it. Takes less than 1 minute. And can be cracked in under 10. My personal record is 30 seconds from pressing the "scan" button to getting a key (ok, it was 64-bit, but my 128 record is about 4)

Granted the decryptor for the passkey usually needs to run overnight to get the code, but going to consecutive nights, and you can get hacked What are you running it on? My Toshiba 133Mhz Satalite Pro?

Yeah, that's what WPA is for - because WEP is fatally flawed. Any script kiddie can hack WEP using easily available tools. That's not exactly news... ;) WPA can be cracked in the exact same way - it just takes a lot longer (and you need to get hundreds of megabytes of traffic)

How about a MAC filter? If it's UNIX based, you can spoof your MAC

[mkrishnan]

If it's UNIX based, you can spoof your MAC

How difficult is MAC spoofing? In any event, my network, hidden / WPA1/2 / MAC-filtered, should be adequately secure, until I start trading nuclear secrets wirelessly. :eek: ;)

[Will Cheyney]

Haha!