Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 10 Apr 2005, Martin Underwood wrote:

"TheOneKEA" wrote in message
oups.com...

Presumably if the wireless LAN has been configured sensibly, it
will reject
any "casual" attempts to connect to it:

- don't broadcast SSID

It *was* broadcasting the SSID otherwise it wouldn't have popped up in
the short time I was passing through the station

- only allow connections from PCs with specific MAC addresses
(listed)

Figleaves.



- WPA security

Effective.


- Or a connection only to a VPN server so you have to log on to that to
get anywhere (more secure than WEP / WPA)


But anyway is there an interesting reason for its existence?


A quick drive by my local industrial estate today (with TCP
disabled on
my laptop to avoid accidental connection!) showed a surprising
number of
visible networks with SSID visible and a few with no encryption. I
resisted the temptation... ;-)

There was a recent article - BBC News, i think - about the density of
unsecured wireless networks in central London; the specific examples
were
ones in inns of court, a judge's office, and the MoD. TfL, though -
that
could cause *real* disruption.


It was an Evenining Standard report. They mentioned the number of
WLANs between Derry street and the Albert Hall which didn't have WEP
enabled but they didn't distinguish between insecure work/home networks
and public access (pub / coffee shop / phonebox) networks.