Unsecured free wifi

Forums › Off topic › Unsecured free wifi - good/bad?

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freitasm

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#744602 14-Jan-2013 15:21

nate:
mattwnz: Not a fan of free wifi myself, and the free provider could be potentially liable for anything that anyone does on it.

We mitigate this as much as possible by having a data limit up/down on known protocols like browsing, email etc, and rating limiting all and everything else to 0 (so pretty much unusable)

I can imagine some crazy conspiracy theorist "everyone should get everything for free" thinking "how dare this cafe offer free WiFi but limit what I can do on the Internet"...

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richms

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#744933 15-Jan-2013 11:07

I dont get why people are happy to have their stuff running over the air encrypted into some random cafe owners network, but freak out that its over the air in the clear. Surely if they cared about the stuff they would be using SSL so it would be a non issue mainly?

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BlakJak

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#744961 15-Jan-2013 11:35

richms: I dont get why people are happy to have their stuff running over the air encrypted into some random cafe owners network, but freak out that its over the air in the clear. Surely if they cared about the stuff they would be using SSL so it would be a non issue mainly?

SSL tends to be per-app (ala client setup within browser, mail-app, etc) and unless you know 100% the behavior of any app you run, there's always a risk. Also much web stuff is still non encrypted. So unless you have an SSL VPN, use of SSL alone (Layer 4+) is still not as elegant as knowing that your Layer 1/2 is secure.

For this reason I will use encrypted wifi where I know every other person with the encryption key is trustworthy, or I will use 3G (Unicast). And I use Layer4+ SSL encryption on top of that.

And when I have to use (unencrypted) FTP to maintain a third party website i'm involved with, I won't be on insecure network access methods. Because the credentials are passed to the wire in the clear, and it's nothing I can change.

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nate

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#803584 22-Apr-2013 11:02

Had this article sent to me by the same customer - comments?

ajobbins

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#803597 22-Apr-2013 11:15

Could the other option to be fire up an additional SSID with WPA turned on, and have the password 'available on request' to those who want it - and others can just use the open one?

Or perhaps, is your POS capable to talking to a box that can generate a unique time limited password and then print it on the bottom of the till receipt?

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kiwirock

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#803604 22-Apr-2013 11:22

ajobbins: Could the other option to be fire up an additional SSID with WPA turned on, and have the password 'available on request' to those who want it - and others can just use the open one?

Or perhaps, is your POS capable to talking to a box that can generate a unique time limited password and then print it on the bottom of the till receipt?

The twin SSID's is a good idea. I use Mikrotik for that and rate limit my open SSID one.

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ajobbins

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#803631 22-Apr-2013 11:55

Another option I like is to have a "VIP" SSID, which you could secured by both WPA2 and MAC address.

For your regulars who you know and trust, you could add their MAC addresses to the trusted list and give them the key. Then they can skip the icky captive portal (which are a pet hate of mine).

For any fussy customers like the one who has brought this up, you could offer to put them on the 'VIP' network.

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nate

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#803643 22-Apr-2013 12:32

ajobbins: Or perhaps, is your POS capable to talking to a box that can generate a unique time limited password and then print it on the bottom of the till receipt?

Too hard for our staff to do, plus if someone forgets their receipt and sits down, they have to requeue to get the password.

kiwirock: The twin SSID's is a good idea. I use Mikrotik for that and rate limit my open SSID one.

This is what we have at the moment. A staff and public SSID.

ajobbins: For any fussy customers like the one who has brought this up, you could offer to put them on the 'VIP' network.

I like this one. Will chat to my network tech (aka fail) about implementing.

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