Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK
As for the DAP1522 placement: does it broadcast its signal like a typical antenna does? For those curious, current running in a loop creates a propagating magnetic field that DOES have polar regions. Thus, antennae always seem to work better when pointed up since the magnetic waves propagate tangental to the direction of current flow. Am I totall off here?
As for the hacking issue: go to arstechnica.com and read their 5-piece segment on how Anonymous hacked HBGary. They did the most damage via social engineering after they got some basic information via garbage data in URL's of the website (a database generates a webpage based upon these variables; if the database input isn't 'cleaned' before its used, then the database can be manipulated in various ways -- such as returning all of the user passwords). That FIRST changed our router this year is reassuring: there's less 'basic' information known about it than perhaps previous years. Yet there isn't even any brute force needed to crack the durn things if the WPA keys are left in the open (the social engineering aspect). I'm not sure if the keys are even given out to teams, or if they're on a clipboard on a wall, or were ever left unattended on a table. If they were, then there IS a SLIM (very slim) possibility that someone DID crack it. IF I were to try to figure out motive, I would say that it was hacking for fun, or more maliciously, hacking lower-priority targets in order to learn things that are useful for hacking higher-priority targets.
I'm not saying I condone hacking in any of its malicious aspects; I'm simply saying that if we're all better educated about it, we're better prepared for those with malicious intent. To think that it's impossible to do is ... well ... hopefully we're not THAT naive, with all of the quotes in signatures running around here about engineering feats that were once impossible.
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One of the reasons for the kiosks is to better secure the WPA keys. There is now no need for the field crew to print the keys at all. Instead they are loaded directly into the kiosk. It is possible to make a printout of them, but that would take a deliberate effort by somebody who knows what they are doing. There is little value in doing so just for kicks, so anybody who did so would probably have another goal in mind, which brings us back to "social engineering" (the current euphimism for espionage where I work)