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#970666 21-Jan-2014 13:58

freitasm:
Dodgy1:
billgates: What does Microsoft have to do with securing your wireless network on your modem/router? Your post is not clear as to what happened?

In a nutshell I put the password into my daughters laptop so she could get on the net. My son then wanted the password so his mate could access the net via my net work and I refused. He then went onto my daughters laptop and into the network settings page and checked the box that says show characters and viola.....he then gave the password to his mate.

Where is this? I don't remember a place where you can see a password after it is stored.

Heh apparently its helpful for 'current connections'

http://www.7tutorials.com/view-change-password-wireless-network-windows-8-81

Is also a netsh command to reveal in clear/plaintext

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mmlakeman

106 posts

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#971687 21-Jan-2014 14:43

Easy to see the passwords on Windows 8.1 as well

Show a security key
At the command prompt, type:
netsh wlan show profile name=“ProfileName” key=clear

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-NZ/windows-8/manage-wireless-network-profiles

TinyTim

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#971714 21-Jan-2014 15:31

nakedmolerat:
My question is, is there any other way of securing my wireless home network so that only myself has control over it?

Yes, go into your router and ENABLE MAC address whitelist.

This might be ok for the casual user, but won't stop anyone who really wants to get in.

sbiddle

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#971717 21-Jan-2014 15:48

Dodgy1:
profrink:
Dodgy1:
billgates: What does Microsoft have to do with securing your wireless network on your modem/router? Your post is not clear as to what happened?

In a nutshell I put the password into my daughters laptop so she could get on the net. My son then wanted the password so his mate could access the net via my net work and I refused. He then went onto my daughters laptop and into the network settings page and checked the box that says show characters and viola.....he then gave the password to his mate.

This is not an issue with Microsoft or any other OS whatsoever.

Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

I've yet to find an OS that doesn't have this ability - Windows, Mac OS and various Linux Disto's I use including Ubuntu and CentOS all allow you to see a WiFi password.

If you don't want this ability you need to stop running the user as an Administator and instead lock down the user access to the machine.

profrink

257 posts

Ultimate Geek

#971733 21-Jan-2014 16:21

Dodgy1:
profrink:
Dodgy1:
billgates: What does Microsoft have to do with securing your wireless network on your modem/router? Your post is not clear as to what happened?

In a nutshell I put the password into my daughters laptop so she could get on the net. My son then wanted the password so his mate could access the net via my net work and I refused. He then went onto my daughters laptop and into the network settings page and checked the box that says show characters and viola.....he then gave the password to his mate.

This is not an issue with Microsoft or any other OS whatsoever.

Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

Fair enough. But if you don't trust the users you are giving physical device access to, then you really need to secure those better.

Your network is only as secure as your weakest point. You've let people onto your premisses which means they now have physical access to the network and that wasn't secured.

For the future, just go with the MAC whitelisting as already mentioned. Or run limited user profiles.

hashbrown

463 posts

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#971744 21-Jan-2014 16:28

Dodgy1: Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

Wow. Love to be a fly on the wall when you discover your browsers password cache.

sidefx

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#971767 21-Jan-2014 17:10

Dodgy1:
Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

You're confusing a wifi passphrase\key with a password. They're subtley different IMO.

Moving past that for a second, as has been pointed out most OS's (and indeed browsers - chrome\firefox off the top of my head) allow you to see a saved "passwords" somehow.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
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t92300

81 posts

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#971897 21-Jan-2014 20:59

hashbrown:
Dodgy1: Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

Wow. Love to be a fly on the wall when you discover your browsers password cache.

Wait until he finds nirsoft ...

nakedmolerat

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#971971 21-Jan-2014 22:13

sbiddle:
nakedmolerat: With windows 8 - you can right click the network icon, properties, and untick the box to show password. Walla! You can see the network key.

You can view your WiFi password with any OS.

yes that is correct. but a LOT easier with windows 8/8.1.

bakewells5856

72 posts

Master Geek

#971980 21-Jan-2014 22:39

sidefx:
Dodgy1:
Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

You're confusing a wifi passphrase\key with a password. They're subtley different IMO.

Moving past that for a second, as has been pointed out most OS's (and indeed browsers - chrome\firefox off the top of my head) allow you to see a saved "passwords" somehow.

WPA Personal isn't really intended to be highly secure, its mostly just to keep neighbors etc from leeching while being easy to use; the key is intended to be shared. If you dont want this to be the case then you may want to to use WPA Enterprise which requires a username and password to log in and lets you control each user individually.

This isn't so easy to set up though, the easiest solution in this case would be to simply have a MAC address white list as mentioned before

eXDee

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#971992 21-Jan-2014 23:03

sidefx:
Dodgy1:
Sorry but I disagree on that one. The whole idea of a password is that it stays confidential. Vista and who knows what other o/s provides a check box to show your password in the network settings is in my view an os issue

You're confusing a wifi passphrase\key with a password. They're subtley different IMO.

Moving past that for a second, as has been pointed out most OS's (and indeed browsers - chrome\firefox off the top of my head) allow you to see a saved "passwords" somehow.

This took far too long to be posted. A preshared key or passphrase is not treated the same as a password, even though this is what people commonly call it.

For a basic home set up, MAC address filtering is indeed what you want. It might make it more annoying to connect devices to your network, but in general it means only devices you know about will have access. Please note MAC address filtering should _not_ be treated as security, its more so a form of access control. Some people think it means they can disable their WPA/2 network key, but this means anyone know knows about how wifi works can simply spoof mac addresses and get in anyway. On that note, the friend you mentioned could do this but i doubt they will.

Benzin

23 posts

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#971998 21-Jan-2014 23:43

nakedmolerat:
sbiddle:
nakedmolerat: With windows 8 - you can right click the network icon, properties, and untick the box to show password. Walla! You can see the network key.

You can view your WiFi password with any OS.

yes that is correct. but a LOT easier with windows 8/8.1.

And even easier in Windows 7 / Vista!

To be fair, with most routers having WPS enabled this makes remote wireless security breaches even more worrying. Local access will always have to save passwords if you have to send them again.
Only OSX does saved passwords correctly using keychain.
If someone already has admin access on your PC why bother worrying if they can connect to WiFi? It doesn't matter, they have seen everything.

Also this: chrome://settings/passwords

Sent from my Windows Phone

michaelmurfy

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#972013 22-Jan-2014 00:17

Step 1) Get a UniFi or Mikrotik.
Step 2) Set up guest access with a voucher based system.
Step 3) Give out voucher codes to those who need access to the network.
Step 4) ???
Step 5) Profit!

Else, just change the WiFi password if your kids disobey you, but as a rule WiFi passwords are never secure, Mac filtering is also not secure, in-fact nothing is fully secure.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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