You've Been Ripped

IMAGINE FOR a moment that you're in a flashback Max Headroom episode, where all of your credentials, from online access to credit cards to your flat key are now instantly and wholly invalidated. You rush to the bank, where you're shown the door after a clerk determines that your account never existed, let alone had funds in it. You've become a non-person. Your name's been scraped from all databases, file cabinets, and messaging lists. Even your driver's license, vehicle reg, and other relational data are gone. Welcome to the nightmare of data dependency.

The reality of the nightmare is that we're adding technologies at furious paces where the information that's communicated from devices is as easy to read as this column. Currently, the biggest privacy compromise comes from WLANs. During my tour of New York last week for CeBIT America Version 1.0, I took along a wireless analyzer that's in my lab for review, along with a NetGear 802.11a/b/g card.

At the trade fair, I discovered 71 access points in the Jacob Javitz Convention Center; most of them were 802.11b, but there were a handful of 802.11a and a surprising number of 802.11g. Many of the APs were open as public access points. Since I had a few minutes here and there, I decided to use the packet capture function of the analyzer software to see if I could find some juicy bits floating through the air. The results were both jaw dropping and hilarious.

Many of the users were fellow members of the press. I won't name names or affiliations. Instead, I'll relate the following items that I discovered:

1) three hot affairs, all apparently by marrieds, with one bi-sexual affair, found by simple email interception. All three used their POP3 accounts without encryption. At least some web mail users have the benefit of SSL, such as Yahoo! and Hotmail users.

2) Seven credit card numbers, complete with information about the buyer. Two were for site purchases; three were online travel site buys, one was a catalog purchase, and one was a porn site logon. To find them, I simply searched the capture dump for the number 54, the prefix to many Mastercards. None of these sites used SSL or if they did, they didn't encrypt forms information properly.

3) Numerous uploads to editors from reporters, some with private observations that couldn't be printed in any sort of publication, all using POP accounts with Outlook, but with no encryption.

4) Four PCs that had Trojans that tried to infect other machines with Nimda. I wouldn't have known this if Norton hadn't twigged.

5) Several dirty pictures. I don't know who the poor wench is, but she's a blonde, a bit overweight, and a nominal contortionist.

6) Many megabytes of totally boring nonsense and surf sludge, but I have all of the IP addresses and at a lot of user names.

None of this would have happened if there had been a simple WEP key given to users on a diskette or other method of distribution by sponsors of the open access points. I left my notebook on and capturing until a 2 gigabyte limit was reached, about five hours worth of data total.

The end of the story is that if you're not using encryption or not sure you are, you're absolutely data naked to the world with wireless. Any voyeuristic geek can see right through your clothing and discover all sorts of stuff you were hoping and perhaps assuming were completely private. Use a public hot spot only if you'd also be completely comfortable at a nudist camp with your wallet hanging open and credit cards spread across the ground. µ

Tom Henderson is managing director of ExtremeLabs, Inc., in Indianapolis