Re: [PLUG] Verizon FIOS & open wireles

[zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com>]

On 10/2/07, Brian Stempin <brian.stempin@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > maybe reading a Bruce Schneier book could explain this than I am now.
> >
> > succinctly, however, so many random people use my network (with my
> > knowledge, such as friends, or without such as strangers) that I find
> > attempting to maintain security of the _network_ to be
> > counterproductive, next to spending my scarce time/attention on
> > maintaining security of the devices on the network.  I can see how
> > "enabling WPA actually decreases the security of my network" can seem
> > counter-intuitive, but in practice I find this to be the case.
>
>
> These are all good points.  I guess what I failed to communicate is that  my
> purpose in "adding locks", if you will, is not so much to secure my network,
> but to keep my network from being abused.  By abused, I mean that I don't
> want kidde porn, spam, threatening emails, or any other such mischief
> traveling through my network out to the public internet.  My goal was never
> to advocate building Fort Knox in your basement, but rather to advise
> against letting people use your internet connection to hide themselves for
> evil purposes.

this is a whole other problem being identified, and off-handed not the
one people generally use for _why_ they "secure" their wireless
network.  afaik, generally people are worried about freeriders
degrading the performance of the paying users (which can be resolved
in a mutually-beneficial way with software management), and they're
worried about public snooping of their private computers (unaware that
they need to secure those computers anyway -- misattributing the
problem).

foremost, I think we've sussed out a difference of preference between
those who would rather maintain a blacklist of activities on their
network and those who would rather maintain a whitelist.

however, if I can cross-reference your fear of "evil uses" of your
network by others with your fear of repercussions by government action
in their pursuit of "evil doers".  keeping your datastore encrypted
and backed up in a geographically distributed system seems like a
solid investment in protection against catastrophe (e.g. house fire)
or physically malicious third parties (e.g. break in and physically
steal your b0xen) in addition to weathering the heavy hand of police
seizure.

with that in mind, preference for whitelist or blacklist seems to
hinge on statistical likelihood of use by "bad guys" or "good guys"
respectively in your area.
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