Archive for WiFi

Newer Entries »

Free WiFi In Toronto Subway Stations Starting Today

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on November 25, 2013 by itnerd

If you travel the Toronto Transit Commission’s subway system and you transit through Yonge/Bloor Station or St. George station, you will now have WiFi at you disposal according to the Toronto Star:

Riders will be able to send emails, receive TTC alerts and surf the web from St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations, effective Monday morning.

But BAI Canada, the company with the contract to outfit 61 Toronto subway stations with wireless, hasn’t yet attracted a cell carrier that would allow riders to phone and text on the subway, said TTC spokesman Brad Ross.

“Cell providers have not demonstrated an eagerness to participate at this stage, so there will be no cell service or texting,” he said on Friday.

I have to admit that I am perplexed as to why Rogers, Bell or Telus wouldn’t want to have their services expanded into Toronto’s subway system. Though, I will note that Toronto joins cities like Paris and London who both have WiFi in the subway. So I suppose I cannot complain and I hope this is the start of something bigger.

Leave a comment »

Tim Horton’s In Resturant WiFi Blocks Access To Gay News Site #whatweretheythinking [UPDATED]

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on July 19, 2013 by itnerd

Gee. If you want to get into the news for all the wrong reasons, I’m pretty sure that this would be on the list of ways to do it. Canadian coffee and doughnut king Tim Horton’s will not let let customers who use their in restaurant WiFi to access Xtra which is a gay news site according to the Toronto Star:

Staff at Dailyxtra.com, the online home for the free newspaper Xtra that’s distributed in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, say they heard complaints from readers that the site was inaccessible at Tim Hortons.

The publication asked that the site be unblocked, assuming it might have been blacklisted in error.

But publisher and editor-in-chief Brandon Matheson says an email from Tim Hortons stated the site was “not appropriate for all ages viewing in a public environment.”

The email went on to say the company blocked Dailyxtra.com as part of its mission to provide “a safe and pleasant experience” for customers and “a friendly environment.”

Oh, this has blown up on Twitter big time. Do a search of @dailyxtra and @TimHortons and you’ll see what I mean.

Now I have not been to the website in question, but I’m guessing that I’m not going to find any pornographic content there. Which begs this question: Do Tim Horton’s really think that this wouldn’t blow up and make them look like total homophobes? Seriously, it’s 2013 and not 1975. All Tim Horton’s has managed to do is to anger the LGBT community and those who support them, which would be a whole lot of straight people. They buy coffee and I’m guessing that Starbucks and Country Time are about to get a major bump in business until Tim Horton’s remedies this explains how this could possibly happen. And that explanation better be good.

UPDATE: According to the Toronto Star, Tim Horton’s has apologized and is working on resolving the issue. Here’s what their talking head spokesperson had to say:

“It shouldn’t have been blocked, in fact we’re working on unblocking it — it may already be unblocked, it should’ve never been blocked in the first place,” said spokeswoman Michelle Robichaud.
 
“We certainly appreciate when people bring this kind of stuff to our attention and the statement made by our WiFi vendor was made in error.”

Leave a comment »

Got A WiFi Enabled Phone? Stores Can Track You…. Yikes!

Posted in Commentary with tags , on January 22, 2013 by itnerd

If you have a smartphone that has WiFi, and you visit retail stores, I have bad news for you. You’re being tracked:

How would they do it? Pretty simple really. When you come within range of a properly configured WiFi access point, it can record the wireless MAC address of your phone – a unique 12-digit number. Every time you pass by, that AP can log that number. If you enter that store or café every day, it will soon have a detailed record of when you (or at least your phone) entered and departed.

It gets better, or worse depending on your perspective:

From the retailer’s perspective, this information can be a virtual gold mine. For the first time they can easily track where customers go after they enter the store. They can identify repeat customers and first timers. They can find out whether shoppers are spending a lot of time in the toy aisle but rarely visit sporting goods or home appliances, and reconfigure the store layout accordingly. They can share data across different locations – to gauge whether the same customers spend more time in their discount outlets or shop at the locations closer to major freeway exits. They can even track people who walk by the store every day but never go in, or if more people enter after a window display is changed.

Needless to say, your privacy is at risk here. So what can you do? Two things come to mind. You can either turn off WiFi on your phone, or you can leave it at home before you go to the mall. Since these stores don’t tell you that they’re actually doing this sort of tracking, you’ll have no idea which stores to avoid. That’s not good.

Perhaps it’s time for some laws that regulate this sort of thing?

1 Comment »

Microsoft Collects Info On Anything With WiFi And Exposes The Info On The Web…. WTF?

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on July 31, 2011 by itnerd

Microsoft really hasn’t done itself any favors this time. The news has hit the Interwebs that Microsoft has collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and access points all over planet earth. They then apparently make this data publicly available through Live.com with little regard to the privacy concerns. How does that compare with others who collect this sort of data?:

Unlike Google and Skyhook Wireless, which have compiled similar lists of these unique Wi-Fi addresses, Microsoft has not taken any measures to curb access to its database. Google tightened controls last month in response to a June 15 CNET article, and Skyhook uses a limited form of geolocation to protect privacy.

Lovely. It makes me loathe Microsoft even more than I already do. How did Microsoft get this data?:

Microsoft assembled the database through crowdsourced data gathering from Windows Phone 7 devices and through what it calls “managed driving” by Street View-like vehicles that record Wi-Fi signals accessible from public roads. Its Web interface is, the company says, intended to provide “search results, weather, movie times, maps and directions based on a device’s current location.”

Sneaky. When asked about this, here’s what Microsoft had to say:

Reid Kuhn, a program manger with Microsoft’s Windows Phone Engineering Team, sent CNET this statement: “To provide location-based services, Microsoft collects publicly broadcast cell tower IDs and MAC addresses of Wi-Fi access points via both user devices and managed driving. If a user chooses to use their smartphone or mobile device as a Wi-Fi access point, their MAC address may also be included as a part of our service. However, since mobile devices typically move from one place to another they are not helpful in providing location. Once we determine that a device is not in a fixed location, we remove it from our list of active MAC addresses.”

Microsoft did not, however, respond to questions whether its database includes only Wi-Fi devices acting as access points, or whether client devices using the networks have been swept in as well–something that Google did with its Street View cars. A May blog post touts “Transparency About Microsoft’s Practices,” but doesn’t provide details.

The privacy implications are huge. Someone can use this info to retrace your steps to see where you’ve been. All they’d need is your MAC address which is easy”ish” to get. Hackers could leverage that info as part of a larger attack. Scary isn’t it.
Sorry Microsoft. This is a #fail for you.

Leave a comment »

Hey IT Nerd: Can I Have Two Wireless Routers On My Network?

Posted in Tips with tags on May 31, 2011 by itnerd

I got this question via e-mail from a frequent reader of my blog:

“I have a question about routers.  I have a wireless router on my main floor and I have a wire running to the basement.  Problem is that the wire is located in a part of the basement that I do not use.  I was thinking of putting another wireless router there.  First, is it possible to have 2 wireless routers working off the same internet connection?  Second, how would I go about doing that?”

Thanks for the question!

The way that I would do based on what your e-mail said it is to not put a second router down there. Instead you should look at a wireless access point. The whole point of these devices is that it allows wireless devices to connect to a wired network using WiFi. It’s a great way to extend wireless access to difficult to get to places such as your basement. I can think of two such devices from Linksys and D-Link that do exactly what you’re looking for. There are others as well, so you should look around and see what fits your needs.

Another option for those who have an Apple Airport Extreme, is to add an Airport Express to the mix. It has the ability to take an existing wireless network and extend it wirelessly. That’s right, no wires required. The process is brain dead simple.

Finally if you do have a couple of routers, some routers may have an access point feature built in. The process of configuring this is tricky, but here’s an example of how to do just that. If you feel like experimenting, this could be an option.

Hope that helps!

Leave a comment »

Use WiFi For Free In North American Starbucks Locations…. Here’s How.

Posted in Commentary with tags , on August 10, 2009 by itnerd

If you want to use WiFi at your local Starbucks, you usually have to pay to do it. Bell who provides WiFi services for Starbucks in Canada and AT&T in the US don’t exactly make it affordable to do so though. But now there is a way to use it for free.

For Americans, this is what you need to do:

  1. Get A Starbucks card.
  2. Sign up for a Starbucks.com account here and register your Starbucks card.
  3. Sign up for a AT&T account here.  You have to agree to receive spam e-mail from AT&T four times a year.
  4. Make sure that you refill your Starbucks card every 30 days or less or use it every 30 days or less to buy something.

Once you’ve done all of that simply take your laptop to Starbucks, open your browser and use your AT&T username and password to get on line. At this point, you’re good for two hours of free surfing every day. Remember, refill your Starbucks card every 30 days or less or use it every 30 days or less to buy something so that you can keep getting 2 free hours a day.

Now for Canada, the process is a bit more straightforward:

  1. Sign up for a Starbucks.com account here.

Once you’ve done all of that simply take your laptop to Starbucks, open your browser and use your Starbucks.com username and password to get on line. At this point, you’re good for two hours of free surfing every day.

There is a second option for Canadians. If you’re a Bell Internet customer, you can log in with your “My Bell self serve profile.” Don’t know what that is? Click here for more info. That will score you free surfing as well for 2 hours a day as well. You can get more details here.

I’ve been doing this for the last month or so in quite a few Starbucks here in Canada and it works quite well. So if you travel with your laptop and you need a place to work while sipping a tall Caffè Americano, Starbucks is now your place.

Leave a comment »

Russians Crack WPA2 Wireless Encryption….Should You Worry?

Posted in Commentary with tags , on October 13, 2008 by itnerd

A Russian company called ElcomSoft has posted a press release that announces the fact that they’ve cracked the WPA2 Wireless encryption protocol using a product called ElcomSoft Distributed Password recovery combined with using Nvidia graphic accelerators:

Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery supports both WPA and the newer WPA2 encryption used in the majority of Wi-Fi networks, allowing breaking Wi-Fi protection quickly and efficiently with most laptop and desktop computers. The support of NVIDIA graphic accelerators increases the recovery speed by an average of 10 to 15 times when Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery is used on a moderate laptop with NVIDIA GeForce 8800M or 9800M series GPU, or up to 100 times when running on a desktop with two or more NVIDIA GTX 280 boards installed. Governments, forensic and corporate users will benefit from vastly increased speed of breaking Wi-Fi protection provided by Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery.

So the question is, if you have a WiFi network, should you be worried? Maybe. If you are worried about this, I have two pieces of advice for you. One piece of advice would be to use a Virtual Private Network on top of using WiFi as that would basically encrypt your data twice. Sound a bit extreme? It’s not really that extreme actually. Google for one has experimented with using a Virtual Private Network on top of WiFi. A simpler thing to do is to change your WiFi password every month or two. Avoid easy to guess passwords by picking something that is 7 to 12 characters in length, containing at least a numeral and a special character (for example: p4$$w0rd instead of password).

Leave a comment »

WiFi Issue Found In New iPod Touch…. The Fanbois Are Not Happy

Posted in Commentary with tags , , on September 14, 2008 by itnerd

Reports have surfaced on the Apple Discussion Boards that WiFi is broken on the new iPod Touch as they apparently don’t connect to some WPA or WPA2 encrypted wireless networks. D-Link routers seem to be hard hit by this, but other types of routers seem to have this problem as well. Certain Linksys and Belkin routers have been reported to have this issue too. The current workaround is to set your wireless network to use WEP encryption which is horribly insecure. WEP encryption can be cracked by the average 8 year old in about 10 minutes using tools found via Google.

Who’s fault is this? That isn’t clear at this point, but assuming the fault lies with Apple, that’s bad. The WPA and WPA2 encryption standards are not new. So the fact that the iPod Touch doesn’t work on networks that use this standard is pretty bad.

One thing to consider: Leopard (OS X 10.5) has had issues with D-Link hardware for almost a year. I’ve personally had problems with my Macbook Pro connecting to D-Link hardware using WPA/WPA2 in the past. So considering that the iPod Touch uses OS X, perhaps this is a old Apple bug resurfacing?

I’ll keep you posted as this one evolves.

2 Comments »

Securing Your WiFi Router

Posted in Tips with tags , on June 19, 2008 by itnerd

WiFi is everywhere (in my condo my Macbook Pro can see about a dozen WiFi routers at any given time), but so are people who are willing to steal your connection. For example, a writer for Time Magazine talks about the fact he stole WiFi for years because he didn’t want to get his own Internet access. The fact is, stealing Internet access is a crime. One that police are starting to take seriously. What’s the big deal you ask? Often these people simply want your bandwidth. But consider this: If they have access to your WiFi network, they potentially have access to every computer on that network (and whatever is in those computers).

That’s scary.

What’s even scarier is the fact that these people can be using the bandwidth that you are paying for to do illegal activities. I’ll use this bizarre case of someone using a WiFi network to download child porn as an example.

So, how do you protect yourself? You need to secure your WiFi router. That will make sure that the bad guys stay out of your network. How do you do that? This is what I do at home:

  1. Change the admin password on your WiFi router: This way, nobody can reconfigure it for their own purposes. While you’re at it, you should disable remote administration as well. It’s usually off by default, but you should make sure.
  2. Change the default network name (a.k.a: SSID): By doing so, it stops the most common way of stealing WiFi. Which is to configure a laptop to automatically connect to the anything named “Default”, “Linksys”, or “Netgear” which are the default network names for D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear WiFi routers, as anything with those network names is likely to be wide open.
  3. Once you’ve changed the network name, stop broadcasting it: By not broadcasting the network name, it will stop casual WiFi thieves. More determined WiFi theives will still be able to find it, but they’ll be thwarted by item number 4.
  4. Encrypt WiFi transmissions using the WPA or WPA2 standard: Most WiFi routers have the ability to encrypt transmission using one of three standards, WEP (Wired Equivalency Privacy) which is weak, WPA (WiFi Protected Access) which is strong, or WPA2 (WiFi Protected Access version 2) which is stronger. WEP should be avoided as it has been proven to be crackable in minutes (click here for a Google search that shows the number of ways this is possible). Using one of the WPA variants will ensure the bad guys stay out. Enabling encryption also means that you need to add a password so that computers can access your WiFi router. Avoid easy to guess passwords by picking something that is 7 to 12 characters in length, containing at least a numeral and a special character (for example: p4$$w0rd instead of password).

Every WiFi router is different, so consult your manual or check the manufacturers website for details on how to do this. But by taking the time to do the above, you guarntee that the only person using your bandwidth is you.

Leave a comment »

Newer Entries »