How Can You Secure A Wireless Connection At School?

[Liltimmy]

What's the best protection for a wireless card at school?

A student is renting out wireless cards to other students in the flat; are there any ways to secure your connection?

Can people openly gain access to your computer or monitor what you're seeing, i.e. MSN Messenger conversations and more importantly WEBCAM or conversations using Skype?

 

[Satori1]

Encryption. The best is WPA, however, it's new, and not everything supports it. WEP still works well enough, no ones going to crack it unless they really, really want to.

As for people being able to gain access, the short answer is no. Windows will not accept connections of that type be default. You can explicitally tell it to, but even then, they'll still need a login name and password.

The only thing you should be worried about is File and Printer sharing. Everyone on the same LAN as you will be able to access your shares unless you turn the remove the shares, or have everyone log in with a name and pass.

You're relativly safe either way, even without encryption. No ones going to "hack" you. It takes way to much effort and generally isn't worth it. You'd have to have pissed someone of real bad to get them after you, though.

 

[Liltimmy]

First, let me say thanks for the quick response.

Does the WPA/WEP encryption have to be set up in conjunction with the Network Administrator? If so, can't he then gain access to your computer? Couldn't someone as well gain access using a program like AirSnort or something similar? I read that AirSnort requires approximately 5-10 million encrypted packets to be gathered. Once enough packets have been gathered, AirSnort can guess the encryption password in under a second. That doesn't seem like it'd be too hard if you lived right under or above that person, which the Net. Admin. does.

Lets put it this way. The biggest concern is this. The Net. Admin who is renting out the cards is one of, if not, the best programming students in the school. And there have been some very peculiar things going on while using MSN with a Web Cam for months now. For instance, Messenger encounters an error EVERY time this girl is showing me one of her new outfits. This has totally freaked us out, because it's happened about 10 times now and ONLY, ONLY when she shows me something. We don't just get signed off either, it completely shuts MSN down, even in the taskbar. I mean sure, you get signed out once in a while for no particular reason, but this is just creepy. Do you think the Network Admin. or somebody else using AirSnort could actually see what WE are seeing on our web cams and somehow be causing these logouts? It seems like somebody is just reading our chat and waiting till we talk about something like that, then trying to gain access to the web cam functionality and in doing so, causing MSN to just crap out.

P.S. By the way, it's not my computer I'm worried about as I connect via cable modem, use 2 routers, McAfee, ZoneAlarm, etc. It's this girls computer I'm worried about, I'm trying my best find out what could be causing the log outs that we get at such PECULIAR times/moments. Maybe it's all just totally coincidental, but Thanks again for ANY help.

 

[Satori1]

Someone could use AirSnort to access your LAN, but not your computer directly. They'd be able sniff your traffic, but they wouldn't be able to control what you're doing. Your network admin would not be able to see what you're see with AirSnort. He might be able to tell you were have some sort of Webcam session, but he wouldn't be seeing what you're seeing.

You're using 'gain access' in a very general sense, I'm assuming you mean something along the lines of: connect computer A to computer B, and control computer B with computer A. In this situation, that's not possible, unless you're part of a domain, or you have Remote Desktop Connection enabled. If it's either, it's probably the later.

My official suggestion is that you disable Remote Desktop Connection, maybe even change your login name and password for added protection, and run a virus scan.

EDIT:
Now that I've sat here and thought about it awhile, I'm reminded of something I used to do with my brother. It's called VNC and it allows a person to connect to your computer and control it directly. Someone may have set a VNC server up on her computer and is access it from an outside source. This is very possible. RealVNC can be set up to accept any connection regardless of the origin without user intervention. You can literally watch them without their knowledge.

If you could, have her download HiJackThis, run it, and then post the log here. Then I could almost certainly tell you if it's that or not.

 

[Liltimmy]

EDIT:
Now that I've sat here and thought about it awhile, I'm reminded of something I used to do with my brother. It's called VNC and it allows a person to connect to your computer and control it directly. Someone may have set a VNC server up on her computer and is access it from an outside source. This is very possible. RealVNC can be set up to accept any connection regardless of the origin without user intervention. You can literally watch them without their knowledge.

If you could, have her download HiJackThis, run it, and then post the log here. Then I could almost certainly tell you if it's that or not.

How difficult would it be to install VNC? Does it have to be installed by somebody with physical access to the comp. or can it be a Trojan? This guys had access to her computer, because he's the guy who set up her net.

And, I'll have her run HiJack, A.S.A.P. She's all the way out in Germany, so it'd really suck if I wasn't able to figure out what's been causing this, because we're both pretty weirded out about this whole thing and don't really want to use the web cam anymore. I don't even want to chat anymore on MSN right now, until she's up to date with everything.

Oh, and you said "He might be able to tell you were have some sort of Webcam session, but he wouldn't be seeing what you're seeing." Yeah, one time he knew that we were using a web cam and Skype once, because he came down to her room(2nd actual contact with computer) and said people were having problems with their net, because of that. At least it sounds like we've narrowed things down to the Network Admin somewhat, seeing as other people wouldn't actually be able to view our web cam sessions via AirSnort or similar programs.

And yeah, I'm mostly concerned with the web cam thing, that really gives me the creeps to think that some freak could be watching us. I mean the timing of getting logged out is just waaaaay to strange for me and has happened too many times to just be by chance

Thanks Satori, You Da Man!

 

[Satori1]

It's remarkably simple to install a VNC server if you have physical access to the person's computer. From what you're telling me now, it sounds more and more like VNC. I'm pretty confident it's that.

Anyway, post the HiJackThis log and I'll be able to tell you for sure.

 

[rdcmmnst]

that is absolutely freaky. Satori you sound like you were quite the brother in your day. For this VNC server to work do you have to be on the same network or is a remote connection...? Sounds like something one of my friend's pulled in college.

 

[tomh500]

WEP encryption I would say although a lot of methods can be used to crack them but its pretty much secure