[wsfii-discuss] Fwd: [india-gii] poor WiFi encryption a security risk

Mon Sep 22 19:13:07 UTC 2008

We don't have to expect that your mom, like any other average user, know 
about WPA/IMAP or whatever TLA we do use.

However, be sure that they can distinguish between having to take care 
while doing things like giving credit card information to someone and 
doing something trivial which doesn't require any protection at all, so 
to do certain things they have to do in a way which they know is 
trusted, and if they don't know and there is a potential risk, don't do it.

Common sense.

En/na wlanmac ha escrit:
> I agree that these are valuable lessons, and that people are learning
> them to some degree. I'm not saying people are too stupid to know about
> the increased risk of insecure WiFi. They read about it in the news and
> perhaps have taken available precautions (like WPA at home). 
>
> However, I do think it is too much to expect your average user to know
> what to do about it. Those of us with IT skills, access to IT support
> staff, or the money to spend on personal firewall and VPN software and
> services have some options... what about everybody else? 
>
> If I asked my mom whether or not she is using POP or IMAP and if it goes
> over SSL, she would have to call Dell support to ask. Yet, she is
> expected to know how to protect herself on an insecure LAN? Her only
> realistic options are to either ignore security concerns or to not use
> the network at all. Somehow I doubt most WiFi operators promote that
> last option in their literature :)
>
>
>
> On Sun, 2008-09-21 at 22:52 +0200, Ramon Roca wrote:
>   
>> En/na wlanmac ha escrit:
>>     
>>> What is the lesson we are hoping to teach people?
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Very simple,
>>
>> Teach the people to distinguish between a private network, and the 
>> public networks.
>>
>>     * Private networks very lokely should be protected.
>>     * At public networks, others can be listening, so depending of what
>>       you are doing, users might want to encrypt their communications.
>>
>>
>> Same logic as internet or many other things. Quite understandable.
>>
>> What's wrong to be under the assumption that people is stupid.
>>
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>>     
>
>
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>   