[176760] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Comcast thinks it ok to install public wifi in your house
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay Ashworth)
Thu Dec 11 12:56:15 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 12:54:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
To: Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAMrdfRy_Pcgo7QHDu72BLiTDqXw0ph313rLOjzPeu93sa36dDQ@mail.gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
----- Original Message -----
> From: "Scott Helms" <khelms@zcorum.com>
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:24 AM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:11:07 -0500, Jay Ashworth said:
> > > I will give them their props: I only had to sign in *once*, last
> > > year;
> > > their auth controller has recognized my MAC address at every spot
> > > I've
> > > used since.
> >
> > Actually, that's sort of scary if you think about it too hard.
> > Shared-secret
> > authentication has its flaws, but it still beats shared-nonsecret
> > auth.
> >
> > I really hope it's something on your laptop other than the mac
> > address....
> It's very scary, and something I'm doing a paper on. It _is_ just MAC
> recognition, at least until you try and use a MAC address that's
> already active somewhere else.
MAC cloning isn't all *that* common, at least not for that usage.
The fact that it is *possible* provides some nice cover in certain
circumstances, I would guess.
As for "something else on my laptop", I'm not sure what else they could
see; I'd be surprised if they could get anything to run on SuSE 12.2. :-)
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274
