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"What I am trying to determine is if the "locking up of my wifi" is worth the inconvenience it might produce for my household."
What inconvenience? If you put a password on it that everyone in the household knows (e.g. the name of the family pet) then there's no inconvenience and yet you're protected from any stranger who happens along.
Anyone who is determined enough can break into your router, even if it's got WPA2. But usually they can't be bothered when there are much easier ones around. I rarely see unsecured wifi networks anymore so if you have one you will stand out.
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Despite all the arguments about secured vs. unsecured wifi (mine is definitely secured), google clearly shouldn't have done what they did, but am sure they and this lawsuit have given plenty of ideas to other less-scrupulous organizations.
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/
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Ask anyone with preschoolers if having a password on the internet "could cause inconvenience"? And I would imagine they could set people straight about this. PLus, kids screw around with stuff, and my kids could very easily! Like I"m thinking they would think this was very funny! IF they changed the password to "only one that the kids knew" and locked me out of my own computer. This I find a riskier scenario than having "unsecured internet". Thankyou for Eric for the wealth of info!
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You only fill in the password once for each device, these preschoolers won't even know there is security.
If they're smart enough to change a password then they're also smart enough to set one - they probably know better than to leave a wifi network unsecured!
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There are also risks involved with having children smarter than yourself! But anyhow, I think I've determined that for me, I will just leaves things as they are, since everything is running smoothly.
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I'll jump in here... (and it's me not Nancy! LOL)
We secure our internet otherwise I get people sitting in the street using my wifi, and slowing the damn thing down.... as I am trying to download big plat maps for work.
I just loved to see 4 people when I got really irritated and just turned my modem off one day. They got out of their car and tried to get a better connection. That was the day I set up the PW.
And the main person doing it was not a nice person, otherwise I would have invited them on my deck to use my wifi and not sit in the steamy car. The barter system has worked too - my friend brought a small orchid when her's was down and she came and used mine everyday for a week!
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Back in 2003, my boyfriend came home from vacation to locked Internet and a letter from the FBI. A neighbor had been downloading illegal copies of movies using BF's open wifi. It was a mess. The only way he was able to prove it wasn't him is our plane tix and photos proving that he was in Italy at the time. if he had been home, or had roommates he woulda been SOL. So yeah, bad things can happen to you if you leave it open.
I'd suggest creating two networks, both pw protected, one for your personal use, other for neighbors you want to share with. Two lets you turn theirs off (by changing the pw) without the hassle of changing the pw on your own computer, tv, iPad, smartphone, etc. most modern routers will let you do the double protected network setup.
* I'd rather fail at happiness than succeed at misery *
* I'd rather fail at happiness than succeed at misery *
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If you're really upset about Google, consider:
1) They are just driving by, so the only data they capture is what's going on in the brief period they happen to be passing.
2) Anybody else can do the exact same thing, only they could sit there for long enough to get actual theft-worthy data. That is why you should have a secured network.
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Thanks for telling me about the video download problem. That is actually the first time I've ever heard firsthand of a problem that occured due to unsecured internet. I usually turn everything off via power strips because I"m so cheap, but you never know, especially if you were gone for awhile.
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quote:
Originally posted by spunky
@unknown julie
"Had not thought of the porn angle. That actually might be legit." actually might be? Tell that to the families that have their world turned inside out (like the link provided by another poster.) It took the FBI 2 YEARS to determine that an innocent family was indeed innocent.
Do you shop online? Every have to key in that 3 # code from the back of your card.
When I warn my friends of identity theft - they just say they don;t have much money so there isn't much to drain from their accounts. They don;t get that these days, criminals are taking over people's lives with their identities. Its not just hacking into a banking account or using a credit card.
They get your info and create whole new identities for themselves ...in your name. I read of one lady who had her identity hacked. The imposter went so far as to take the innocent person to court claiming that the innocent person was actually the imposter. She committed welfare fraud and all kinds of other crimes in this innocent woman's name.
Not gonna beat my head against the wall anymore trying to convince anyone that unsecured wifi is a bad idea..... go ahead and give criminals and law enforcement something to do.
Spunky: while you are correct that unsecured wifi is generally a bad idea, it is not the only layer of protection. You also have a firewall on your computer, antivirus, control of network shares, etc. Online shopping information is sent over https, which uses encryption and is somewhat difficult to crack in order to access user password and login information. The real problem is that generally folks who have unsecured wifi also have open shares on their internal network that can easily be compromised, or lack a firewall or haven't updated their OS and software, which allows a whole suite of cracks to be used to gain access.
The amount of data google could capture from unsecured wifi is pretty small from most people unless they were using email in clear text (I generally use https encrypted webmail). They could definitely capture your posts on punaweb as well as your login information if you happened to be logging in at that time.
Ericlp has some other valid points on the topic.
Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike
