eircom wifi ap just appeared

iwb

My laptop just told me that there were wireless networks detected the other day where there were none before. When I had a look, it said 'Eircom1125 7764' and it is a secured network. I can't imagine someone naming an AP this way themselves but I also don't know why Eircom would be setting up something in this area. If I can pick it up on the laptop from inside a building, it can't be too far away.
Can anyone shed any light?

StickyMcGinty

the default SSID on the ntopia router is named somthing like that, i could be wrong though!

doesnt matter anyway, its secured, no use to you at all!

iwb

Thanks. I am sorted for connectivity anyway. I was just curious if eircom had a hotspot somewhere in the area.

flashcash5

So default netopia SSIDs are in the format of '1234 1234', am i right?

StonedParadoX

if it wasnt secured you'd be a very happy camper

flashcash5

:rolleyes:

copacetic

prob just your neighbours wireless router, i can see a neighbours as well as mine from
my place, can't connect to it though...

Gone West

Yeah thats a random number generated by the router to append to the SSID.
Just means one of your neighbours got eircom bb and got the free wifi router with it.

masteroftherealm

To The BEst of my knowledge the nube is acutallly the eircom account no of the user

Stky10

VinnyL wrote:

the default SSID on the ntopia router is named somthing like that, i could be wrong though!

doesnt matter anyway, its secured, no use to you at all!

Legally yes. I can detect two of them from my kitchen, and they're
both running WEP and both operating on Channel 7. Looks like its a
default out-of-the-box setting. I'd guess that the WEP key
is probably out-of-the-box as well.

I have broadband access all day so I have no need to hack them,
but I doubt if others will be so generous. Even if it isn't a default
key in use, it would only take 3-5 mins to hack it, and how many
home users are going to change the WEP key more than once
every 2-3 months at best???

And even if it wasn't secured, it still doesn't give you permission
to connect to it and use it. If I saw an unsecured network, I'd
presume that the owner is either very stupid/naive, or is trying to
setup a honeypot to watch people connect and use it, and collect
any passwords they use.

azezil

masteroftherealm wrote:

To The BEst of my knowledge the nube is acutallly the eircom account no of the user

lol! and no

At no point in the netopia setup are you required to enter your account number, that'd be incredibly stupid

masteroftherealm

Ha lying bastard in work was wrong then!

humaxf1

I can pick up 2-3 AP with SSIDs in that format. All are running WEP.

At first I thought it was something to do with an eircom exchange 2 streets away from me, but I can now pick them up on my laptop with a mini PCI NIC which would be less sensitive at a further distance.

So, I'm now thinking, after reading this thread, that its just neighbours with a wireless router close by.

Regards.

alantc

Stky10 wrote:

I have broadband access all day so I have no need to hack them,
but I doubt if others will be so generous. Even if it isn't a default
key in use, it would only take 3-5 mins to hack it, and how many
home users are going to change the WEP key more than once
every 2-3 months at best???

And even if it wasn't secured, it still doesn't give you permission
to connect to it and use it. If I saw an unsecured network, I'd
presume that the owner is either very stupid/naive, or is trying to
setup a honeypot to watch people connect and use it, and collect
any passwords they use.

If it's just out of the box, I'd guess people would still be wired to them. Or did eircom give a free wireless card too? So onless the networks are in use, i think you'd have to use brute force . (not 100% sure) and it would take you ages. Far too long.

I can't imagine people setting up routers, just to be assholes. They'd be doing it to target someone and chances are you and I aren't worth targeting.

zAbbo

to setup those wireless routers, you connect via lan, copy the passphrase, enable wlan, then connect using passphrase.

Secure enough, it may not be that difficult to do some packet sniffing, if you were so inclined.

The ones i setup were 64bit wep default.

Gone West

bazh, thats assuming you have physical access to the ap.
As I said before, those numbers are all random and are designed to complicate matters when using some linux based WEP cracking tools.
I takes a hell of a lot longer than 3-5 minutes to crack a WEP network, stky10.
Sure, a lot of these "newbies guides to wireless hax00ring" may tell you that.
But in practice, it takes much longer.
Also, using a honeynet to log peoples passwords, apart from being incredibly unethical, is also not as useful as you might think.
Everything good uses SSL, so getting into folks email, apart from being immoral is also next to impossible.

donutface

I dont have a netopia router, but ive been in contact with a friend and he tells me the default wep key (confirmed by me) is
8f90d76d164707b845ccfbbc63

Although I can log into the network, and i know the default router ip adress is 192.168.1.254, i cant seem to ping it or any other machine that might be on the network, anyone have any ideas?
Could be that my laptop is too far away from the router, and that i can recieve its signal but they cant recieve mine.

Gone West

default wep key...
Did you not heed any of my unethical/immoral warnings?

I find that people who try to crack any of my wireless networks end up with a little more than free internet access. If you know what I mean.

The_Conductor

To the original poster- Eircom are rolling out Broadband "hotspots" in their telephone booths in the Dublin area and elsewhere at the moment. Its possible that its one of these activated callbooths that you are picking up.

Re: secure networks and the default Netopia WEP key- why would anyone use a default setting and assume they have any security whatsoever? The very least you should be doing is a randomly generated 128bit WEP 4 part key, and hiding or even ghosting the SSID. I can see 3 different networks here (apart from my own) and only one of them has any security whatsoever (and even that is at default settings). My lappy automatically logs on to next doors router (as it hunts the strongest signal). Given my bittorrent usage- I wonder what their download limits are

In this day and age its nothing short of stupidity not to use half-reliable security. A random 128bit WEP key, hiding your SSID, a hardware firewall between you and the outer world, properly patched systems........ Its life- live with it, or pay the price.....

donutface

Well i believe that what your saying is just the wrong solution to the problem.

I choose to ignore WEP completely, at the moment I have a FreeBSD server thats hooked up to a dlink 802.11b access point with no wep whatsoever.
You all must be thinking im crazy, but heres where my magic works. My BSD box runs on 192.168.1.1 (default router usually so people will go and check it out), if they HTTP to it, they get a big goatse image, and it saying get the hell out of my network.

What i still want to do is make a PHP script thatll automatically send me a text message when this happens via meteors websms, but thats for another time.

On this BSD server im running OpenVPN, OpenVPN creates a virtual TUN/TAP adapter (cant remember which), which is bridged to my real network, which runs on the 192.168.0 range. To initiate this connection i need certificates on my laptop, so if anyone does get in, they deserve to use my bandwidth, because itd be a hell of a lot of work to crack those certificates, unless they crack my SSH pass, which I also want to change the listening interfaces on sometime.

donutface

FuzzyLogic wrote:

default wep key...
Did you not heed any of my unethical/immoral warnings?

I find that people who try to crack any of my wireless networks end up with a little more than free internet access. If you know what I mean.

Maybe when people start stealing each others bandwidth, eircom will think up something a little smarter like maybe turning Wifi off by default on their routers (it is possible I hear), and leaving the people configure it manually (with plenty of warnings).
They couldnt possibly have a default WEP key though and expect it not to leak. Anyway my laptop cant use DHCP either to get an ip adress, so ill have to figure out a way to strengthen my signal. Currently im at 1mbit connection to that AP :rolleyes:

Gone West

eh....
thats exactly what they are doing right now.

The_Conductor

donutface wrote:

Anyway my laptop cant use DHCP either to get an ip adress, so ill have to figure out a way to strengthen my signal.

I'm curious- why can't your laptop use DHCP to get an IP address?
Also- about strengthening the signal- there are oodles of external wi-fi aerials you can get- I have a 9dbi for my desktop at home, and a 12 dbi one for my lappy. I see a 25dbi cone aerial for US$49 on ebay- but why would you want something that strong (even if the directional aspect is handy!)

donutface

to log into my neighbours wifi.

Anyway id much rather buy a Linksys WRT54g, install sveasoft firmare and up it to 251mw, that should be enough to get a good few AP's around my area.