In message <73345C98-EB2D-4DB5-A8BD-D23D77A51E49@ianai.net>, "Patrick W. Gilmor e" writes:
On Nov 21, 2005, at 9:42 AM, Ross Hosman wrote:
So my question is pretty simple. You have all these major companies such as google/earthlink/sprint/etc. building wifi networks. Lets say I want to collect peoples information so I setup an AP with the same ssid as google's ap so people connect to it and I log all of their traffic. Most people won't check beyond the ssid to look at the mac address but even that could be spoofed. Is there anyway to verify a certain ap beyond mac/ssid, will there be in the future? How do these companies plan to mitigate this threat or are they just going to hope consumers are smart enough to figure it out?
Why would you even need to set up an AP? Why not just sit and sniff traffic? Gets you the _exact_ same information.
And why worry about Google, etc., when Starbucks and airports have been doing this for _years_?
Lastly, most consumers are smart enough to know to use encryption (the little pad-lock in their browser). Some aren't. Changing the WiFi architecture is not going to save those who aren't.
By setting up a fake AP, you can launch active attacks. Sure, people won't get the right certificate -- and they're not going to notice, especially if the (unencrypted) initial web splash page says something like "For added security, all SSL connections from this hotspot will use Starbucks-brand certificates. Please configure your browser to accept them -- it will protect you from fraud." --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb