Dear Editor,

I write this email to the Letters to the Editor
section, in response to Kathryn Lundy's article on
page 18 of the 10th May's JEP.  Unfortunately has many
incorrect statements, and is very misleading.

1. "When the pioneering wi-fi technology was
introduced as a faster, better and wireless
alternative to the original cable connections, it
changed the way many of us accessed the internet."

Wi-fi was not designed to be faster than wired
connections.  It started off slower, and even now
fails to catch up with the speeds of wired
connections.

2. "He was arrested and cautioned for dishonestly
obtaining electronic communications services with
intent to avoid payment."

This is referring to somebody who was arrested for
avoiding payment for an internet connection - yet the
article goes on to talk about wardriving which is not
the same thing at all.

3. "But the practice of 'wardriving' - stealing a
stranger's wireless connection - is becoming common."

Wardriving is the act of gathering information about
wireless networks - it has nothing to do with
"stealing" a connection.  What the article is
referring to is piggybacking a connection - this is
utilising a wireless connection which is not stealing.

4. "they could do anything from download child porn,
to downloading viruses onto your computer"

This is clearly designed to get a reaction from your
readers and is nothing more than scare-mongering. 
What you are describing is what a malicious or
troubled user could do - this has nothing to do with
gaining access to wireless networks.  Somebody using
any public internet connection could download illegal
pornography - even with their own internet connection
they can become untraceable.  Furthermore, the act of
placing a virus onto a victim's computer would be
uploading, not downloading.

5. "Wired Equivalent Protection (WEP)"

WEP does not stand for Wired Equivalent Protection, it
stands for Wired Equivalent Privacy.  Quite rightly
though, it is a flawed method of protection, and
should be avoided if you want to have a good chance of
keeping people out of your wireless network.

6. "at least 20 characters - then it becomes much too
difficult for a hacker to crack it, as it would take
an infinite amount of time to do so."

It would not take an infinite amount of time to do so.
 If there are a finite number of possibilities, only a
finite period of time would be required to try them
all.

7. "Switch off the SSID broadcast" and "Use MAC
filtering"

Both of these methods are trivial to get around. 
Hidden SSIDs can be captured as a genuine wireless
client connects, and MAC addresses can be cloned when
inspecting the wireless traffic for a genuine MAC
address.  These things require the same amount of
skill, if not less, than WEP cracking, so after
pointing out how useless WEP is, you should not
recommend these.

I understand that this email flies in the face of the
published article, however I implore you to publish it
as an act of education if nothing else, rather than
having the public undertake ill-informed witch hunts
whenever they believe they spot someone with a
wireless laptop.

Luke Bratch