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.
It could be worse... (Score:2, Insightful)
Trying to make others feel as stupid as you were? (Score:0, Insightful)
"My neighbours are stealing my wireless internet access."
Possible, but not likely. The most likely thing is your clueless neighbors don't have their own wireless set up very well, and are connecting to your wide-open network without realizing it. Thinking they are connecting to their own setup.
If you are an idiot who set up his network wide open, I wouldn't complain about anyone 'stealing' access. Secure your network properly, or be prepared to share it if you leave it open.
By leaving it open in the first place to be stolen, you've shown your dumb. Now doing this jackass thing to an 'open' resource, shows that you are a dumb asshole.
Stealing? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you just shake your head at your failure to secure it in the first place, decide if you care, and if you do, lock it down.
Funny way to deal with it, though.
Re:I use WEP (Score:2, Insightful)
It makes me think about turning off WPA, though.
Feh (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really see the point. It's funny as a practical joke. In terms of protecting your network... why not just secure it instead?
Re:Should be legal (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, yes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, if you don't want others to use your wireless, just encrypt it. Annoying freeloaders this way is pretty much childish. Set up WPA-PSK (which is much easier than WEP and more secure, AFAIK) and be done with it.
You can't steal unprotected Wifi. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Funny, yes... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not very likely (Score:1, Insightful)
This seems to suggest a scenario where it was not the owner's intention to have an open network, and at some point in time he discovers it's being used.
If we're talking about someone smart enough to play this trick on the neighbours, the network would likely be secure in the first place.
Re:Liability? (Score:5, Insightful)
If, on the other hand, you simply mangle the images that (s)he's looking for, then you could say that you're protecting the kid from nasty content.
It's not like you have a contractual responsibility to deliver something that (s)he never asked or paid you for.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
Assign invalid address or route to localhost (Score:4, Insightful)
You're just flipping webpages, right? What's to stop them from getting on a P2P network and sharing/downloading files? What's to stop them from visiting illegal porn sites?
Doing this to them will just make their internet useless. Not as funny, but safer IMO.
Another thought: Is there some way to randomly route their requests to a totally different webpage? Say they want to go to Google, etc. Is there some way to redirect their request to a randomly-generated (but real) URL? I'd suggest something in a foreign country.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind if people want to check their e-mail on my WAP. I do mind when they idle on file sharing services, using lots of bandwidth and exposing me to potential legal liability.
It's a shame that I have to protect my router somehow, especially because one of my devices (a Nintendo DS) doesn't support WPA at all.
Re:Should be legal (Score:4, Insightful)
As funny as this might be, I don't see it as being worth the potential liability. If the DMCA can attempt to outlaw drawing on your CD with a sharpie, then you could get in trouble for just about anything.
Re:Open Networks (Score:2, Insightful)
You are an idiot. He paid for the connection, and he can do whatever he wants with the people using it. In fact, this practice of 'borrowing' your neighBOR's wireless is becoming illegal in some areas.
Except (Score:5, Insightful)
Some computer says to the router "Hey, can I come in?" and the router says "Sure". Now, the moment you put something up, like needing a password, then you are no longer inviting people in.
Computer says "Hey, can I come in" router says "Sure, if you know the password."
Or you can encrypt it
Computer says "Hey, can I come in?" the router says "KE*jd7638JDEJE*834899(&^&#nd&#&bd*e#"
Certainly one could be *far* more evil than this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
Conversely, if you find someone else's unsecured wireless network, why would you complain if they decided to flip all the images?
Re:Goats (Score:3, Insightful)
Do your neighbours a bigger favour - change their mooched web browsing data to kittens to let them know their actions are not clandestine.
Re:Goats (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't secure a wireless connection that spills onto other people's property, why shouldn't they use it until told otherwise?
If your cordless phone connection spills onto their property, why shouldn't they use your base station or listen to your calls until told otherwise?
Of course, they can't do that you'll say, because it might cost you money. Using their internet connection might cost them money! Granted, it's rare, but what if they receive internet service from celluar and pay for each megabyte?
I just think it's pretty arrogant to assume that you can use it without permission just because it's unsecured.
Re:Intercepted Intruders (Score:3, Insightful)
The wireless is broadcasting into their home, and it is cnotently loking for connections.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point, I think - absurd, flawed (Score:2, Insightful)
A car left idling with the door open advertises itself. Stealing it would still be wrong. I'm sorry, but your moral compass is flawed.
Re:Goats (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point, I think - absurd. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wireless networks may make themselves conspicuous, but that does not confer an invitation to use them. The connection between "visible" and "inviting" is not legally or morally valid. (I am excepting the concept of "attractive nuisance", but I don't think open routers will come under that area of liability)
Re:Goats (Score:1, Insightful)
Not because it's unsecure but because his f* signal is within my property.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point, I think (Score:3, Insightful)
How does someone know whose netowrk it is?
It should be that if you are freely braodcasting for connections, and no effort is made to limit access, then free use is implied.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
I spent three years as an abuse admin at an ISP, and spoke with a number of customers where the only likely culprit for an abuse complaint was someone "borrowing" their Wi-Fi connection (nmap [insecure.org] is a wonderful tool for finding likely infections/file sharing clients). In almost all of these cases, securing the Wi-Fi access point made the problem go away.
It's possible that my customers were lying and that they just latched on to the Wi-Fi excuse to get me off their backs, but after three years, it (usually) wasn't too hard to tell when someone honestly had no clue and when they were covering up
So *that's* why I object to people using my Wi-Fi without permission.
Re:Goats (Score:2, Insightful)
HuH? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even something as amorphous as bandwidth is a limited resource. To paraphrse the head of the commerce committee, an open wireless connection is not a dump truck you can just load up with as much as you like; it's a tube!
Sure, if you want to make sure nobody uses your tube, you should protect it. But just because you don't doesn't mean you're giving explicit permission. If I leave my bike on my front lawn without a lock and someone steals it--even if they give it back before I notice it was gone--it's still theft.
Re:Except (Score:4, Insightful)
To use the yard analogy that seems to be popular for these threads, lets supposed your neighbor's massively retarded child asks your massively retarded child for permission for his Daddy to use your yard, and your child agrees. Neighbor then comes over and stages a cookout on your lawn, or for that matter just walks across it.
When you confront him, he says "But my kid asked your kid, and he said yes." This is binding? Common sense and the law would say no, yet you would allow devices with an order of magnitude less analytical power than a retarded child to give and receive similar permissions.
Repeat after me folks: devices CANNOT give and receive permission for human actions without those permissions EXPRESSly being granted via some other means.
A traffic light doesn't give you permission to cross the street; the government(that you studied to get your license) gives you permission to cross the intersection when a light is green, and denies it when red.
Your ID badge doesn't ask permission to enter your building, and the security system doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by presenting the badge, and your employer grants it by programming said system to accept your request.
Poor neighbors.... (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I suspect the neighbor of just not understanding how things work. I'll bet they set up a wireless access point in their house, put in the wireless card, and fired up the machine, which connected to the first network it could see, and they assumed it was theirs.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
Legal Troubles with Unsecured Networks (Score:3, Insightful)
I also don't buy the idea that "if they didn't secure it, it's an invitation to use it." If I leave my front door unlocked or left a window open, I still don't expect the neighbors to come right in and rummage around my icebox. You certainly won't be successful in that argument if they complained to the police.
If you want to piggy back on someone's network, ask first. It's not that hard to do, and most people don't mind.
If you want to open your network to the public, divide it into two networks (one secured and one unsecured), close potential trouble ports, and direct everyone to an opening page where you make no claims of any warrenty for service, and that your network can only be used for legal purposes. That'll protect you from most legal problems.
Re:Goats (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Missing the point, I think - absurd. (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are saying is that, unles I put a tarp up around my garden, everyone has a right to use it.
No, actually we're saying that if your garden pelts us with carrots and peas as we walk past on the public street, we're at liberty to catch them and consume them. Only if you place anti-vegetable-flight netting around your garden (or stop planting vegetables that lend themselves to comparison to an unsecured WAP) does it become incumbent upon us to behave as good citizens.
Hey! Analogies are fun! Somebody compare Internet privacy law to hunting and fishing licenses!
Re:Understanding the Approach to this (Score:5, Insightful)
This line gives me chills. He's passing a completely unsanitized input (the bandwidth thief's URL) to a system() function.
At least he didn't concatenate everything so that system() would run the entire string as a shell command.. then simply adding a semicolon or pair of backticks to the url would cause the system to run any command the attacker liked, including deleting all files squid has access to and running a custom backdoor. There are a lot more local root-escalation flaws than remote.
Even without the shell character vulnerability, who knows what kind of failures you can induce out of wget given the right parameters. He should sanitize the URL before passing it out.
There's also the possibility of a vulnerability in mogrify, given the right corrupted image file to work on. Mogrify should be run in a separate user account that has no access to anything other than the input file.
Never trust your input, especially from an already-admitted evildoer.
Yes, I'm paranoid - I work in information security. :)
Re:Missing the point, I think (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goats (Score:3, Insightful)
So which is it? Is a WiFi signal a piece of property like an apple, that if undefended is free for all? OR, is a WiFi signal a burst of radiation, like a view from the neighbor's window, that has privacy rights attached to it?
I'm willing to bet that if the RIAA cruised around looking for file-sharing over unsecured WiFi and found you downloading Pirates 2, your lawyers would claim privacy in order to invalidate the evidence.
Re:Missing the point, I think (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be interested to hear of any such case. Just like the RIAA implies it is illegal to download, they have never charged a single person with downloading. I've heard of people being arrested after using an unsecured AP brought them to the attention of the authorities, but never have I seen anyone charged or tried, much less convicted of use of an unsecured wireless network.
Re:Goats (Score:3, Insightful)
Citations please (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm legitimately interested in them, not just looking for a chance to bash you.
Re:HuH? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's like walking up to a door with a "please enter" sign on it. The wireless access point broadcasts its name and "invites" people to join. People that connect to the open invitation then ask if they can get an address. The AP responds with a valid address, as well as passing along the router to get out to the Internet. If the AP broadcasting onto public and other people's private property, telling your computer it can connect, how to connect, where to go to get to the Internet, then happily (well, as happily as an AP can get) passing your traffic along isn't an invitation, then I don't know what is.
You should've locked it if you didn't want me to take your TV!
Well, if your TV is sitting on my lawn with a "please take me" sign on it, it's going in my house and you'd be hard pressed to get me in trouble for it.
Re:Understanding the Approach to this (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree with possible flaws in mogrify though.
Re:Understanding the Approach to this (Score:3, Insightful)
True, the way he called system(), sending "http://www.google.com; rm -rf / ;" as $url should be harmless - doubly so since squid (and therefore this redirector) should be running as a limited user. wget should also not see anything in $url as additional switches.
However, it's possible that certain ASCII strings passed to wget would make it fail in interesting ways, including compromise. Even if the current wget is completely safe, what about the next version? (Or an old one?) What if someone takes the code and uses curl instead of wget, or some other app?
The point is that this code is sloppy and dangerous, and could easily be fixed. Data from the user is untrusted and should be presumed to be dirty. The author of this code presumes $url is clean. Cleaning it should only take a line or two, and should be the first thing you do.
Here's the fun part - I've done enterprise development, and even within the same team I had to defend against bad input from other parts of the system. All routines that I worked on first cleansed the input, then checked it for sanity - and I managed to find quite a few bugs in other people's code that way. There is no safe data, there are no trusted sources.
It's not always malicious - mistakes do happen. But a mistake (or attack) in one portion of a system shouldn't break another part of the system.
Re:Except (Score:2, Insightful)
Correct, but devices can follow privilege polices set by the administrator, which CAN grant privileges.
The problem with your argument is that in the yard scenario, the child would only grant permission to use the yard based upon the policy determined by the dad. So if the child granted permission to use the yard to the neighbor, then it's because the dad's usage policy allows it. If dad doesn't want his neighbor to use his yard, then he shouldn't tell his kid, "let everyone use the yard."