Comment 2T7K Re: Under The Radar?

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Marriott fined $600,000 by FCC for interfering with customer WiFi hotspots

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Under The Radar? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-10 20:48 (#2T7E)

My question is whether we as consumers/paying guests/etc. can configure an AP so that it provides us service and yet flies under the radar enough to be immune to these lowly tactics on the part of scummy businesses like Marriott.

Obviously one can turn off SSID broadcast, which helps a teeny tiny bit, but I wonder just how far one would have to go to fly under the radar of most of these WiFi attacks and countermeasures and just use your own damn equipment and services without interference.

Naturally if you're transmitting at any frequency at all, SOMETHING can find you, but if you obscure your protocols and frequency enough it should be doable. The only question is how much is enough and how hard is it to do...

Re: Under The Radar? (Score: 2, Interesting)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-10-11 02:41 (#2T7G)

how far one would have to go to fly under the radar of most of these WiFi attacks and countermeasures and just use your own damn equipment and services without interference.
I'd use the FCC's contact page... It's super effective!

Turning-off SSID broadcasting won't do the tiniest thing.

The AC mentioned 802.11w before me. But there are other potential options in the interim...

* WiFi firmware (on ALL your clients) could be modified to ignore deauth packets if sent too frequently, and pay attention to data connectivity, instead.

* You could put your AP and all your clients in a metal (Farady) cage, but you need your cellular antenna to be outside the cage to get a signal.

* You could use network monitoring tools to look for deauth packets, then walk around checking signal strength to find the physical location of the AP interfering with you. From there, a crowbar will solve the problem quite nicely... Alternatively, unplugging or putting a metal cage around the interfering device will work, if you're opposed to vandalism for some strange reason.

* You could PLUG-IN to your AP instead of using WiFi. Of course if you're tethering to your cell phone (as opposed to a "MiFi" device that has an RJ45 port) then the deauth attack could make internet access unavailable indirectly.

Re: Under The Radar? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-11 15:06 (#2T7K)

Yes, I was answering myself after I found 802.11w. Still me. :)

Other than the firmware mods (which I gather aren't actually available unless one writes them) your other suggestions are of course untenable.

Starting to seem as if the better approach would simply be a 3G card or dongle directly on each device, removing 802.11 from the picture. This works with most family plans. Pity though, having to spend extra money to dodge the bastards. Of course on their premises they could conceivably jam GSM and CDMA too.

Junk Status

Marked as [Not Junk] by bryan@pipedot.org on 2015-01-02 05:35