Why do you need to keep WiFi open

Renowned IT security specialist and distinguished cryptologist Bruce Schneier explains why his home WiFi access point has always been open to everyone, without a password and encryption. Bruce says that it is this element in his heaped security system that most often astonishes those around him.

Anyone with a wireless modem can see my network and go through it to the Internet. As for me, this is a simple politeness. Providing the guest with Internet - as if to provide him with a roof over his head and electricity, or to treat him with a cup of hot tea. However, some people think that this is wrong and dangerous.

I am told that uninvited strangers can drive up to my house and send spam, intercept passwords, upload and download anything: from pirated movies to child pornography. As a result, various troubles can happen to me: from blacklisting my IP to a police visit.

Although from a technical point of view, this is true, but I do not think that the risk is really great. At least five kilometers from my house there are at least five open access points in different coffee houses, and any potential spammer is much more likely to work in a warm room with a cup of coffee and cookies than in an ice machine near my house.
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And yet, if someone commits a crime through my network that the police are interested in, then what could be a better defense than the very fact of having an open wireless network? If I activated the protection and someone hacked it, it would be much more difficult for me to prove my innocence.

I do not claim that the new WPA wireless security protocol is somehow bad. He is good. But holes will be found in it, they always exist.

I spoke with several lawyers on this issue. With their legal method, they discovered several more risks associated with opening a wireless network.

Although no lawyer thinks that you can be successfully convicted simply because someone has committed a crime through your network, but it can take a lot of time and money to investigate this case. Your computer may be confiscated, and if they find at least something illegal (pirated software, MP3 music), then you will find yourself in a delicate situation. In addition, court prosecutors are not always technically advanced users, so in the end, you really have to pay some kind of fine, despite your innocence. Lawyers with whom I spoke, recommended to avoid a trial and seek a conciliation agreement on cases involving child pornography.

If you take a more real-life case, the RIAA sued users on suspicion of illegally downloading music, based solely on information about their IP addresses. Here the accused’s chances of winning are higher than in the criminal process, because in civil proceedings the burden of evidence is less. And again, the lawyers say that even if you win, it does not pay back the costs, and you still have to pay a couple thousand dollars.

However, these threats do not convince me. In our country, 15 million people download music illegally , and the RIAA filed only 26,000 lawsuits . Mark Mulligan from Jupiter Research said best of all: “If you suck torrents, you know that the probability of being caught for piracy is approximately equal to the probability of an asteroid falling into you.”

My position cannot be changed by those who say that I put my own data at risk, because hackers can park near my house, enter my open network and listen to Internet traffic or hack into my computers. This is true, but my computers are in much greater danger when I use them in wireless zones at airports, coffee shops and other public places. If the system security settings do not depend on the network, then there is simply no difference. And if my computer is not protected in a public network, then protecting my network practically does not reduce my risks.

Yes, computer security is a tricky business. But if your computers sometimes leave your home, then you will have to solve this problem anyway. And any solution can be applied also to desktop machines.

In the end, some critics say that someone can just steal my traffic. Despite separate court decisions that it is illegal , I have a feeling that this is not against the law. I really have nothing against it , if the neighbors use my Internet when they need it, and I have heard several stories about the people that their neighbors' wireless networks saved from emergency offline.
In the same way, I appreciate the presence of an open network when my connection is lost. If someone would load my network so much that it would infringe my own traffic, I would have thought about taking some measures , but so far everyone is mutually polite, why should this concern me?

Of course, this does not apply to ISP. Support for an open wireless access point often violates the terms of your contract with the provider. But if you do not take into account the very rare cases of subscribers receiving letters with orders banning the continuation of unlawful actions , as well as the anger of providers to people who exceed a certain secret limit on traffic volume, but this is not a risk at all, by and large. The worst thing that can happen is find yourself another ISP.

A company called Fon offers an interesting way to solve this problem. Their wireless access points support simultaneous operation in two modes: a secure network for you and open mode for all others. You can set up your open network in "Bill" or "Linus" mode. The first mode involves mutual settlements between all users who have chosen it, and in the second mode, all people use any access points for free. Really smart idea.

Security is always a compromise. I know people who rarely lock the front door of his house, who drive behind the wheel in the rain (and with a mobile phone in hand) and who talk to strangers on the street. In my opinion, protecting my wireless network is not worth it. And I am grateful to everyone who also has an open wireless network, including all the coffee shops, bars and libraries that I visited in the past, Dayton International Airport, where I started writing this text, and the four-star Sheraton, where I finished it. You all make the world a better place.