Turning Network Free-Riders' Lives Upside Down 658
An anonymous reader writes "You discover that your neighbours are using your unsecured wireless network without your permission. Do you secure it? Or do you do something more fun? A few minutes with squid and iptables could greatly improve your neighbours' Web experience ..." Improve is a relative term, but this is certainly gentler than certain other approaches.
I use WEP (Score:2, Funny)
Goats (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It could be worse... (Score:4, Funny)
It's not their fault... (Score:5, Funny)
Granted, my neighbors didn't intentionally set their router up with that ID but they did leave it unsecured with the default password for the admin account. It was simply the neighborly thing to do to change their ID and resecure it with a new password (that, admittedly, they didn't know).
The funnest thing (Score:3, Funny)
Could just watch (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Bash.org (Score:5, Funny)
(Mootar) morons.
(Mootar) these people who live in my apartment complex are connected to my wireless
(Mootar) they must think they're super-cool hackers by breaking into my completely unsecure network
(Mootar) unfortunatly, the connection works both ways
(Mootar) long story short, they now have loads of horse porn on their computer
http://bash.org/?202477 [bash.org]
Can you imagine the tech support calls? (Score:5, Funny)
But can you imagine Joe Sixpack trying to explain to Pradeep that all the images in his web pages were being displayed upside-down (or better yet, blurry, or upside-down and blurry!), while all the text in the very same web pages was being displayed upside-right in crystal clarity?
Joe Sixpack probably doesn't know the differences between images and text. Pradeep would hear the word "upside down" or "blurry" and immediately think it was a hardware problem.
It'd probably take any of us half an hour to convince a second-tier tech that we weren't trolling him, never mind Joe Sixpack.
I'd give my left nut to hear the support calls on this. (Particularly as I'm pretty sure that those of you in tech support have no use for my left nut. :)
Re:Liability? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Trying to make others feel as stupid as you wer (Score:5, Funny)
Calling someone on slashdot dumb - mostly free.
Making a dumb mistake while calling someone dumb - priceless.
Re:Liability? (Score:2, Funny)
From the way you spell "neighbor", I can see that you are an American, and are in an environment where frivolous lawsuits are much more of a worry than they are in the UK.
Dealing with Neighbors (Score:3, Funny)
Osama Bin Laden has just been killed and [your neighbor's name and address here] has just collected the $25 million reward from the Americans!
Translate it into Arabic then cut-and-paste it into one of the Jihad web sites in the Middle East where the beheading videos always get uploaded to first.
Check that your insurance papers are in order and then go take a couple days vacation a few hundred miles away. When you come back, no more asshat neighbors.
Re:The funnest thing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You can't steal unprotected Wifi. (Score:5, Funny)
I think that someone is redirecting your requests through a proxy server that randomly inserts the letter "o" into the word genius.
Moran.
Other ideas (Score:4, Funny)
-Occasionaly replace images with random google-image-searched images
-Translate any text on a web page on the fly into some very English-like language but different enough to make the pages impossible to understand
-Translate text on the fly into languages with non-arabic characters
-The obligatory replacing all images with random porn images
-Keep the first/last letters of every word the same, but jumble the letters in between. You have seen this site [cam.ac.uk], haven't you?
-Invert the colors of all images on the web pages
-Convert all graphics to grayscale, or 16-color
etc. etc.
The possibilities are obviously pretty extensive... I think after hearing about this I'll be a little more careful with my usage of other peoples' wireless networks!
Re:Can you imagine the tech support calls? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you can, if your neighbor is using your network connection to fullfill all his VOIP needs.
Re:Obligatory Bash.org (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can you imagine the tech support calls? (Score:4, Funny)
I am going to go see if I can't salvage what remains of my ruined day.
blurry-net (Score:5, Funny)
At first, I thought there were way too many screenshots. I mean, ok, we get it. But then at the bottom of the FA, it pays off. After the dumb kitten and upside-down stuff (where they know someone is fucking with them) we get to the treasure: blurry-net. That's subtle and I love it. The ideal prank for the proverbial Man In The Middle would be to do things to confuse the endpoints, not merely annoy them.
The next step is to spy on them and see what websites they visit, and then insert some fake content one day. For example, if they use it to read CNN, insert a casual story about a nuclear weapon getting used in the Middle-East or South Asia, or a story about the president of USA selecting a new vice-president due to the assassination last week ("What?! I didn't hear about that!"), or the CDC in Atlanta is investigating the recent rash of improbable claims about the dead returning to life to feast on the flesh of the living, etc. If they visit Slashdot, then the jig is probably up, but maybe it would be great to have a story where a security study found Windows98 to kick OpenBSD's ass and then a bunch of comments where everyone agrees that the findings pretty much match their own experience, along with complains about "how is this news for nerds?!"
Fun with firmware (i.e. bugs) (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of my first run-in with wireless at home.
After noting that the same bozos kept connecting to my network as soon as I powered it up, I tried configuring the wireless router to only accept the MAC addresses of my computers. No dice: at best it didn't work, at worst the router locked up and I had to do a hard reset.
So I phoned tech support. Rather than answering my question ("Why can't I lock the router to specific MAC addresses?") they proceeded to attempt to walk me through setting up WEP. I told them that wasn't what I wanted to do, that it was my router, my network, and I did in fact know a thing or two about networks. Eventually 2nd level tech support called and admitted that locking to MAC addresses was broken, and they had no ETA for a fix. I took the router back and bought one from a different manufacturer. It works fine.
I still like the idea of leaving part of it public and dispensing scrambled content...LOL!
...laura
Re:Can you imagine the tech support calls? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Trying to make others feel as stupid as you wer (Score:3, Funny)
You misunderstand. Your dumb is like your taint. Down under my butt. Showing your dumb to someone is like mooning them.
Re:Liability? (Score:3, Funny)
No. They're frivoulous lawsuits. :D
Sorry. Extra u joke.
Re:What's the POINT? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can you imagine the tech support calls? (Score:2, Funny)
Well, there have been a few users who I've wanted to fit with a ball gag...
Re:Could just watch (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Could just watch (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's not their fault... (Score:1, Funny)
Internet tubes will get clogged (Score:2, Funny)
Frame this (Score:5, Funny)
"This is borrowed bandwidth. Have you thought about getting your own connection."
Oh and make sure it is flashing. Actually you could make it so that the whole content flash. Now that would be annoying.
Hello, tech support? (Score:5, Funny)
You know they were on the horn to the vendor after punching every monitor control and several loud screaming matches and an expensive service call for a monitor that then worked just fine on the bench...
As a webmaster I can now say April 1 just got very far away...
Re:have to get more creative (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Goats (Score:3, Funny)
Unlike WiFi thieves?
With Ettercap, PCAP, and Squid
My WiFi scheme unfurls,
I'll hijack traffic from script kids
And send them to tubgirl.
Re:getting biblical on the neighbours (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Goats (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Goats (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, I believe it's only scaring them away from people who charge them with umbrellas while screaming which, in my experience, is not a significant number. I fear I'll soon have to resort to more drastic measures, like holding out some popcorn and then cold-cocking the first sonofa dove that makes a lunge for it. Of course I'll tell them it's only for their own good, and it hurts me more than it hurts them.
Re:I agree.. (Score:2, Funny)
They drink your blood?