Most tech-heads will know what an SSID is. It’s the public identity of a wireless network that broadcasts itself to the public. You’ll see them in airports and coffee shops all the time. Spark up your laptop and you’ll find “Starbucks wireless”, or “Chicago Airport Public WiFi”, or “Boingo Hotspot”, or somesuch. Normally, those names are quite innocuous. Most people running private ones (eg ones at home, or in offices) encrypt them.

Someone on our block decided not to encrypt theirs. People decide to do this for various reasons. Perhaps they like the idea of providing free access to others (maybe they’re even running a FON box), or perhaps they’re too lazy, or simply don’t understand how to configure it or don’t know they can.

That’s their choice, of course. But what annoyed me is that whoever configured the box decided to give their network a nasty name. Most of the SSIDs on our block say things like “XX family network” (with XX being the name of the family in question). Or something preconfigured like “WIRELESS174″. The people who set up their network a few months ago decided to call theirs “F*ck you guys” instead (asterisk is mine).

Something about that, and the lack of encryption, irked me a little. I guess it offended my genteel Brit sensibilities. It bugged me that they were educated enough to set an SSID, but anti-social enough to engage in a form of electronic coprolalia, effectively shouting expletives at 2.4GHz. It’s not exactly going to ruin the planet, but they are inviting some feisty retaliation. What to do? How about a bit of value-added wardriving?

1) Join the network. Actually, you might be able to join the network even if it’s encrypted, using something like Aircrack. A lot of people assume that an encrypted network is unbreakable, but that’s not true. Many people use short, predictable passwords, and the shorter the password, the easier it is for a program like Aircrack to break by analysing the traffic. A mate of mine cracked a network in his building in about four hours. The guy who owned the network used a four-letter password, and then downloaded huge amounts of Bittorrent data over it. Short password + high traffic throughput = crackable password.

2) Once you’ve joined the network, find the WiFi access point’s administration page. Try http://home, or try entering IP addresses using 192.168 as the first two numbers (192.168.0.1, and 192.168.1.1 are both common).

3) The admin page will tell you what the router is. Take a note of the make and model.

4) Google the make and model, and add ‘default password’ to the search. Ker-bling. Google turns up all sorts of interesting stuff, and it’s amazing how few people configure their wireless routers properly when they install them, especially those that take the trouble to configure the SSID. Why don’t manufacturers randomise the password at the point of manufacture and put a sticker on the back of the hardware? Some do. Others don’t. Why? Because they don’t take security seriously, that’s why.

5) Go back to the administration page and log in as the administrator. Chances are, if they didn’t encrypt the network and they’re using ‘F*ck you guys’ as an SSID, they’re not that smart. Now you own their router.

6) Change the SSID to something you consider more appropriate. Personally, (and you realise, of course, that this is a purely hypothetical discussion), I like ‘We love you guys!’

7) If you’re feeling especially adventurous, you could always set your own password. You know, to protect them from themselves.

If you’re running a wireless network, and you want to protect yourself from people with a wireless card an adventurous streak, here are some pointers:

1) If you don’t intend to make the network public, then turn encryption on and set a long key. Don’t think passwords. Think passphrases. Take the first few words of the first sentence of your favourite book, for example. the longer the password, the longer an automated cracker would take.

2) Again, if you don’t intend to make the network public, then add extra security by configuring the system to only allow certain IP addresses or machines on. Look for MAC or device filtering features to set this.

3) Don’t be a jackass. If you’re going to set your SSID, play nice and use something civilised. It’s still a public space. Ideally, keep the SSID abstract, so that people don’t know whose network SSID they’re looking at and get any ideas. Or, if you want to keep your network really private, turn the SSID off altogether.

4) For godsakes, set the adminstration password! Leave it as default and you will get nobbled, sooner or later.

Happy new year. We love you guys!