BBC News: 'Did weak wi-fi password lead the police to our door?'

[MB]

Interesting and worrying item on the BBC News pages.

I can remember many years ago people having similar problems because the
legal authorities considered an IP number "proof".

I suppose we will not get a spate of phone calls supposedly from ISPs to
say they were needing to change our password - I have had up to three
calls supposedly from BT on some days to tell me I was going have my
Internet disconnected.

[Abandoned_Trolley]

I have heard so many stories about so many people being disconnected
that I am surpsied that anybody in the UK has any internet connection at
all.

I am astonished that I am even able to post this reposnse.

AT

[Jeff Gaines]

On 23/05/2021 in message <s8d8le$o2v$1...@dont-email.me> Abandoned_Trolley
wrote:

Well, they've dosconnect your spill chicker :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
If you ever find something you like buy a lifetime supply because they
will stop making it

[Woody]

I like it when they ring and say they are BT and will be cutting my
Internet off - note NOT broadband, always Internet!

I sometimes play along with them before I tell them I have cable (which
they understand) and not VM (which they don't.)

[Roderick Stewart]

Yes, anybody who watches TV cop dramas in which the villain uses the
internet knows that an IP address is an invariable and infallible
pointer to a particular individual's computer, which can easily be
located within minutes. And of course it usually turns out to be
within a short car journey of wherever the drama is set.

It's worrying that perhaps real police forces might not know much more
about this stuff than the writers who create the fictional ones.

Rod.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 23/05/2021 in message <kaikag14ofntn3hqg...@4ax.com>

In American crime shows like CIS and its offshoots they just need a
picture of the corner of somebody's ear - and they always live just round
the corner as well!

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his
life.
(Jeremy Thorpe, 1962)

[Woody]

Er, CSI:

We have them round here as well - no longer called SOCO!

[David]

Partially related, but our VM link went down last night after a period
imitating a roller blind.
One thing that confused me is that my phone seemed to be working fine on
WiFi.
After some checking I looked at which network I was connected to.
It was a BT home network unknown to me and as far as I know I don't have
any roaming rights to BT WiFi networks.
Just checked, and the SSID started with BTHub5- and I can connect to it.

My Realme Pro apparently looks for a working and available WiFi connection
if the current one stops working.
Both the routers in the house were stuffed because the VM link was down,
so the phone just went and looked for what else was available.
I haven't yet worked out where this is configured.

Anyway, long story short, anything I connected to on t'Internet would
presumably be traced back to the BTHub-xxxx in someone else's home.

So as we all know IP address doesn't necessarily link to the occupants of
the house where the router is sited.

Still not happy that the phone picked up a stranger's WiFi.


Cheers



Dave R



--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 7 Pro x64

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Abandoned_Trolley]

> In American crime shows like CIS and its offshoots they just need a
> picture of the corner of somebody's ear - and they always live just
> round the corner as well!
>

Also, anybody who buys anything anywhere seems to leave their name,
address and blood group behind - even though they pay in cash.

And anybody who needs to crack a password for anything seems to simply
type in the password and then announce "I'm in"

Bizarre ..


(maybe you mean "CSI" ? - I think "CIS" might be the Co-op)

[Mark Carver]

On 23/05/2021 17:20, David wrote:
>
> Anyway, long story short, anything I connected to on t'Internet would
> presumably be traced back to the BTHub-xxxx in someone else's home.
>

No, the public access WiFi that exists on domestic BT Hubs, is a totally
separate VLAN, to the one the punter with the BT Hub is using for their
domestic connection

> Still not happy that the phone picked up a stranger's WiFi.
>
>

Well, delete BT public WiFi from your phone's WiFi connection list !

[NY]

"Jeff Gaines" <jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:xn0my8glh...@news.individual.net...

> In American crime shows like CIS and its offshoots they just need a
> picture of the corner of somebody's ear - and they always live just round
> the corner as well!

Or else they see a CCTV (probably NTSC 525-line video) image of a room, with
a party invitation (occupying about 2x2 pixels) on the mantlepiece. And "the
tech guys" can enhance this to provide an image with clearly-legible text.
This was the resolution of an episode of Quincy or Columbo in which the
invitation still being on the mantlepiece proved that the culprit hadn't yet
gone to the party which he claimed as an alibi for the murder seen on the
CCTV.


I'm reading an Ed James "Scott Cullen" novel at the moment which portrays
what I suspect is probably a more true-to-life description of forensic
evidence, in which it is not a trivial matter to produce a minute-by-minute
map of where someone's mobile phone has been (either by GPS or cell-tower),
and in which warrants to compel organisations to give the police access to
address databases etc are not immediately forthcoming and the warrants don't
immediately make the organisation give all the information that they are
required to do. And I've learned a new Scottishism: "back of ten o'clock"
which seems to mean "some unspecified time after 10 o'clock, and probably
nearer to 11 o'clock" (*). I'll add that to "messages" (meaning "errands")
and "outwith" (meaning "outside", either in a strictly spatial sense or in a
sense of "beyond the scope of") in my mental list of Scottish dialect terms.


(*) I say "*seems* to mean" because when I googled it, there were lots of
references which all gave slightly different interpretations, with no
definitive answer.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 23/05/2021 in message <xn0my8glh...@news.individual.net> Jeff

Gaines wrote:

>In American crime shows like CIS and its offshoots they just need a
>picture of the corner of somebody's ear - and they always live just round
>the corner as well!

Thanks for pointing out it's CSI. Dog damn this dsylexia.

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK

George Washington was a British subject until well after his 40th birthday.
(Margaret Thatcher, speech at the White House 17 December 1979)

[tim...]

"Roderick Stewart" <rj...@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kaikag14ofntn3hqg...@4ax.com...

If you watch "real crime" programs you will find out what the police can,
and do do

You will also find out that they have learnt that "someone hacked my wiffy"
is reasonable doubt and wont prosecute without more substantive evidence
than that

(FTAOD Yes I do know that it isn't the police who do the actual prosecution)

[NY]

"tim..." <timsn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:s8flfc$ni$1...@dont-email.me...

> You will also find out that they have learnt that "someone hacked my
> wiffy" is reasonable doubt and wont prosecute without more substantive
> evidence than that

It's a few years since I've set up a router that was bought in a shop, as
opposed to one supplied by an ISP. Do shop-bought routers still come with
standard SSID and WPA key (eg "NETGEAR" and "password") or is each one
customised during manufacture, as for an ISP-supplied one?

When I used to set up routers for people, one guy said "Don't bother setting
a wifi password. I only use the PC for web-browsing and there's nothing
confidential on my PC". I pointed out two things that made him reconsider:

- he may do internet banking or buy things on Amazon, and wouldn't want his
details to be stolen

- someone could park outside his house, download all manner of illegal porn
(children etc), and it would be the owner of the house who would be chased
by the police (as happened in this news story)

I think it was the second point which really changed his mind...

[tim...]

"NY" <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:s8fqq6$2fp$1...@dont-email.me...

> "tim..." <timsn...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:s8flfc$ni$1...@dont-email.me...
>> You will also find out that they have learnt that "someone hacked my
>> wiffy" is reasonable doubt and wont prosecute without more substantive
>> evidence than that
>
> It's a few years since I've set up a router that was bought in a shop, as
> opposed to one supplied by an ISP. Do shop-bought routers still come with
> standard SSID and WPA key (eg "NETGEAR" and "password") or is each one
> customised during manufacture, as for an ISP-supplied one?

nope they have complicated passwords

But I am led to believe, I have no personal experience, that they can still
be cracked by experience people

> When I used to set up routers for people, one guy said "Don't bother
> setting a wifi password. I only use the PC for web-browsing and there's
> nothing confidential on my PC". I pointed out two things that made him
> reconsider:
>
> - he may do internet banking or buy things on Amazon, and wouldn't want
> his details to be stolen

The password is an irrelevance for data sharing (well it's not irrelevant,
but it's not the only barrier)

if you turn data sharing off, then even someone who cracks your router
should still have no access to data on your devices

OTOH, if you think that they can obtain this data by "sniffing" packets, it
doesn't require cracking the router password to do that.

> - someone could park outside his house, download all manner of illegal
> porn (children etc), and it would be the owner of the house who would be
> chased by the police (as happened in this news story)

which is the one for which "my wiffy was hacked" has traction

Some people deliberately leave their wifi open for all comers to use.

we don't routinely see them in the dock for (someone else) downloading porn,
anymore. The police need real evidence of illegal porn on your own device.

[Tweed]

But they can seize all the devices in the household to go looking for that
evidence, and you could be without those devices for a very long time.
Enabled by a magistrates’ court warrant. As with all things involving plod,
it’s best not to start.

[MB]

On 24/05/2021 10:14, NY wrote:
> - someone could park outside his house, download all manner of illegal porn
> (children etc), and it would be the owner of the house who would be chased
> by the police (as happened in this news story)

I think it is possible to do a Risk Assessment on the area where you
live. There is probably a higher risk in an area with lots of houses /
flats in close proximity and perhaps a high turnover of people living
there. It is easy to speculate on some groups more likely to hack into
computers.

[notya...@gmail.com]

Now they just say your internet provider as many people aren't with BT.

They still ring on the line that doesn't have it, so if I fancy a bit scam baiting, I ask why they haven't even installed it yet.