RE: [SAGE] Favorite impossible task?

["Richard Johnson" <rdump@river.com>]

At 13:38 -0700 on 2002-11-22, Barb Dijker wrote:
>
> Cust: I just turned on my laptop and it connected to the wireless hub.
>
> Me: Without a wireless card in the hub?
>
> Cust: Uh.
>
> Me:  I think you need to talk to your neighbors.


Not really an impossible task, but along those wireless lines (names may
have been changed to hide the guilty...):

Me:  Agh, why does my login banner say "Last login: ....rr.com"?  Has
someone hacked us?

Friend in the bowels of Road Runner:  I'm not supposed to tell you this,
but I guess it's OK because our customer is at your address.  Your
housemate?

Me:  But I don't have cable modem service, or a housemate.

Friend:  Could one of your neighbors have sniffed your wireless traffic and
stolen a password?

Me:  Only if they can break ssh and ipsec streams...

[I go home.]

Me:  Hey, my bandwidth is faster than normal.  Whoah, 360kbps on a dialup line!

Me, a few minutes later:  Wait a minute, the SSID on the base station I'm
associated with is 'linksys'.  Where's -my- SSID?

Neighbor, knocking on my door:  Hey, can you give me a hand with securing
my linksys router?  I think someone's breaking into my wireless network...


Sure enough, my Airport base station had had one of those capacitor
failures where the lights are still on, but the radio is not home.

My laptop just happily reassociated with the strongest signal still
available.  In the middle of the night.  All without telling me.


Richard