WiFiTheft.com, Wifi Security and Privacy Related Information

Keywords

Wifi Theft
Wifi Hi-Jacking
War Driving
Spyware
Proxy Server
Encryption
Hotspot
Router
Firewall
Spoof

WifiTheft Discussion Forum

Security Related Links

Secure-Tunnel.com

Secure-Tunnel can completely Encrypt your information, so even if you end up on a hi-jacked wifi network, the hi-jacker cannot retrieve any information about what you are doing. Uses 1024-bit Encryption! Starts at $2.95/month

Anonymise.com

Another great service to protect your valuable wireless data. Anonymise uses strong encryption to offer very good protection. $8.95/month.

Other Links

Usenet.com

Probably the best Usenet provider on the market. Offers access to download Music, Movies, Games, Images, etc. Recommend using this for your downloads rather than spyware riddled software such as Kazaa.

Bincrawler.com

When using Usenet, check out BinCrawler to find anything that you are looking for quick and easy.

A Wifi World

With the advent of Wireless internet becoming more and more popular, the internet is become more ingrained in our lifestyles than ever. Wifi hotspots are now everywhere, at airports, coffee shops, bars, even shopping malls. Cities such as Duluth, MN have now begun city wide Wifi. However, with wireless, comes some new risks that are being exploited.

WiFi Theft

When consumers purchase wifi devices, such as routers, and cards, they come unencrypted and with a standard password. For the consumers that are less technically oriented, this presents a problem, due to the fact that they very rarely tighten the very loose security protocols of these devices. This leaves there homes, small offices and businesses largely open to attacks and theft. When a network is left open (unsecured), other wifi users can get onto that network without any credentials at all, no need for passwords, encryption algorithms, or any other security related information. All they need is a laptop, a wireless card, and a good location.

Once on the network, these people can not only "bounce" off your signal to gain internet access, but can also attack your internal network, bypassing the firewall that many of these new devices now include. This leaves your entire internal network open to attack.

This unauthorized user can also use your network to email millions of spam emails, hack or crack websites and servers, or even spread a new virus.

ABCNews.com recently did an story about this new form of hacking, known as "WarDriving"

WiFi HiJacking.

An even scarier prospect that wifi theft that is just now coming into existence is Wifi HiJacking. Wifi HiJacking is a way for someone to steal your personal information from you without you ever even realizing it until it is too late. Wifi HiJacking can happen just about anywhere, mostly at "HotSpots" such as coffee shops. This new way to steal your identity is a very easy thing to do for the technically inclined. How it happens is that when you use a wireless hotspot, the "HiJacker" uses a specially modified laptop to "spoof" the Wifi Router. Instead of connecting to your intended router "Starbucks Router" for example. You instead connect to the HiJackers computer, then as you send and receive data via the internet, all of that data is captured by the HiJacker. Imagine you were on a site using your credit card. Or you were sending and receiving confidential emails about your customers or clients.

Here is an article with a more in depth explanation.

WiFi HiJacking.

One way to protect against this new form of identity theft is to use a data-tunneling service such as Secure-Tunnel.com. While going through a tunneling proxy like Secure-Tunnel, all of your incoming and outgoing data is completely encrypted in 1024-bit encryption. It also routes all data via 1 port number. Therefore, even if you were to mistakenly connect to a "HiJacked" hotspot, your data will not be able to be read. The encryption is so strong, even government supercomputers take weeks to break it.

WiFi News from Wired.com