Perhaps this indicates most folks can’t configure network encryption with known parameters, but advising everybody to just turn that pesky WEP stuff off seems, well, misguided:
Disable WEP
Sniffing a guest’s private bits from an unencrypted link doesn’t pose any challenge at all and, given the hotel’s location in Hartford’s hot urban core, I’d expect absolutely no security-by-obscurity whatsoever.
On the other paw, Dragorn of Kismet points out the triviality of a man-in-the-middle WiFi attack no matter what encryption you might (think you) have in effect. So maybe it doesn’t make much difference.
And if you think the wired network is inherently more secure, that should change your mind.
#1 by david on 3-April-2012 - 20:11
“that” is exactly the reason why WEP, WPA, and all other layer-2/3 encryption is utterly pointless. If you’re not running SSL, SSH, or the equivalent, you are guaranteed to lose, and if you are, your link-layer “security” is totally irrelevant, just a waste of time, effort, and needless complexity and bugs.