The Idiocy of Wi-Fi Continues

23 January 2009

After listening to TWIT, Security Now and several other podcasts that are relevant to the tech industry, I have heard that more and more people and businesses are using WEP and WPA on their wireless networks.  While WEP is certainly NOT the best solution, it is something.  WPA is widely considered the minimum protection by many, if not most, of people who care about the use of wi-fi networks.  I certainly encourage my customers to use it when they purchase a wireless network setup.

Now for the “IDIOCY”!

A phone call came into the store shortly before we opened today.  The person on the phone states to me that he works for a local business and gets his wireless from a different local business.  He is having trouble connecting, because the router is over 40 feet away and goes through several walls.  Well that can be a problem.  He wants an antenna that will “improve” his connection.

The first thing I ask is if he actually has permission to use this connection.  He states that he in fact does have permission.  OK.  I tell him that we do carry some antennas that “could” help, with emphasis on the “COULD”.  We discuss the type of wi-fi adapter that he has to determine if one of the antennas we have will actually work for him.  He tells me that he has a desktop PC with a wi-fi adapter in the back.  I as if it is USB, and he tells me that it is not USB.  Well, it sounds like we can help.

When the guy shows up in the store, he has a different story about the wi-fi adapter.  He actually looked at it and turns out it is a USB adapter.  Since he is not giving me the “tech toy hacker” vibe, I don’t even suggest soldering on an antenna to the USB device.  He says that it might help if he was to get past one of the walls and wants to know if we have an extension cord for USB.  We can do that, so he purchases one.

During to course of our conversation, I was able to get more info on his “wireless setup”.  He business and “several” other businesses all use the high speed DSL connection that it paid for by one of the local businesses.  This is probably against the “terms of service”.  He did tell me he has to put in a “security code” to connect to the wireless.

Now for the scary part.  The business that they are all using for their wireless connection is an insurance company.  I know quite a bit about the network used in the insurance company, because I know who installed the network equipment.  He was told that the owner of the business wanted a wired/wireless network for “in office” use only.  There would be 2 wired users and 1 wireless user.  Only the office staff would have access to the network.  It was setup with a WPA key for the wireless user to prevent anyone from using the network that was not part of the office.  Windows file sharing is in use on this network and none of the shares have passwords as per the owners requirements.  This means that anyone connecting to the wireless network has access to the shares on the original network setup for the insurance company.  I repeat, anyone connecting to this network can now SEE the files that have been shared by the insurance company.

25 January 2009

I wrote the original post above two days ago.  I was amazed and a little upset at the time and thought that the person who came in the store may have had incorrect information or somehow figured out that WPA key from the insurance agent and was using the wireless network without permission.  I was, however, wrong in this assumption and the original information was correct.  The insurance agent is giving out the WPA key to his wireless network so that the other businesses around him can share the connection.  He pays for a business class internet connection from a local ISP, then splits it out with the neighbors.  He is using consumer grade equipment, a Linksys WRT54G, to create this wireless connection.  The Windows shares are still unsecured as the insurance agent is unaware of how to change it and seems unwilling to do so.  This is unfortunate as the shared data is there for to taking by anyone who is able to connect to this network.  I have to hope that the people who have access to this data are honest people.

The moral of my story is this, if you are going to go to the trouble to secure your wireless, please don’t just give the key out to whomever.  If you are going to be benevolent and share an internet connection that is connected to a network, by all means, protect sensitive data.  The sharing of your network should not give everyone the keys to the kingdom.

More Employee Troubles

Seems that the “norm” around here is to immediately do nothing a soon as the “boss” leaves.  Well actually the owner seems to be supporting this behavior as near as I can tell.  He is afraid that we are going to “offend” the employees if we actually make them do their work!

So, here I am, stuck in the middle.  The owner wants certain things done and the employees are not completing assigned tasks.  Somehow I am need to correct the behaviors of the owner and the employees at the same time.  For some reason, the owner has no trouble getting on my ass about things, but when I assign a task to the employees and it is not getting done after I go home for the evening, he says nothing.

I am a little stuck!  I have had several discussions with the employees, but since this is not supported by the owner, my talking is for nothing.  Yes, I have also had discussions with the owner about the situation that he is creating for me, but this is not changing.  I am just getting pissed off.

Another problem is actually one of the employees that likes to take some of the ideas to the owner for implementation.  These are things that I have been pushing for for some time.  Now, the boss has said several times that we should listen to what the “kids” have to say, because they are young and “in-touch” with the younger crowd.  That’s fine, but when your veteran manager tells you that we should do something and you don’t, then don’t do it when the “new employee” says that you should.  The manager will just think you are a dumb asshole.  You should also remember that it was someone else’s idea first and quit running around telling everyone what a genius the new employee is.

Customer Tries to Inflict Guilt Trip

At 9:30AM the phone rang at work.  This is nothing unusual in itself, but the subject of the conversation was different.

Seems that the customer had been in the store on Sunday asking about having a refrigerator delivered to her house that day.  Well, for starters, we are basically only open on Sunday for video rentals.  We used to be closed, but we had several requests from customers that we be open on Sunday.  We tried it for a little while and it paid for itself, allowing us to provide more hours to our part-time employees.  When the employee working told her that we don’t do deliveries on Sunday, she tried to play a trump card.  She told him that the former owner, from 7 years ago, had told her to have the employee call the owners at home.  Now I don’t know what she thinks “former” means, but to me it means “they no longer have any thing to do with the operations of the store”.  Needless to say, she did not have a refrigerator delivered to her home immediately on Sunday.

When she calls at 9:30, she tells me that she had tried to call the store early in the morning, but no one answered the phone.  I asked her what time she tried to call.  She called at 6:00AM and 7:00AM.  Well the store opens at 9:00AM (she knew this), so why the hell did she think that someone would be here at those times.  Now, we do have people here at 8:00AM to open the store.  Had she been patient and called a little later, someone would have been there to take her call.

Now, for the reason why she was calling now.  She wanted to let me know that because she had been in yesterday, she had not gotten a call back Sunday night and she was unable to reach us at 6:00AM, she had called another store, in another town and purchased another refrigerator.  WTF?  Ok, am I supposed to be upset?  By this time I am realizing that this lady is a nut.  She called attempting to make someone feel guilty about her not purchasing an appliance from a “local” business.  Out of all the people involved with this cluster, I think that she is the only one feeling any guilt.  I am certainly not.

Actually, the woman did manage to accomplish one thing in all this.  She managed to waste about 3 minutes of my time!

Malware Infection! Why?

A customer called on the phone Monday.  Seems that they are experiencing a malware infection of some type and would like to have their system “cleaned up”.  I started to recommend that he or I re-install the OS.  He cut me off.  Seems he did this before at the recommendation of Dell and proceeded to lose all of his data on the machine.  That’s too bad, had he taken the system to a competent repair person/center, his data could have been saved and he wouldn’t have this poor attitude about re-installing.

I told him that I could see what I could do, but I made no promises.  I did explain that since the HD was is working condition, I could retrieve any data from the drive.  He says that he understands, but he would like to just “have the virus removed”.  OK!

Next the conversation turns to when would be a good time to drop off the system.  I told him that he was welcome to drop the system off anytime.  Next he asks how long I thought it would take to clean it up.  I tell him that without seeing the system, I couldn’t really be sure. So he asked if it would be ready by Tuesday.  I told him that unless it was a really simple infection, it would most likely take much longer that that, unless we did a re-install.  No, of course we can’t do that.  He then proceeded to tell me that he would bring it by Wednesday morning, because he needed it for an investment club meeting on Tuesday evening.  WTF?  You have an infected machine and you want to do investment club activities with it?  Are you crazy? Evidently he is!  He ignored my advice once again and used it Tuesday night.

When he finally brings the system in a 9:00AM Wednesday morning, he proceeds to tell me about the behavior of the machine last night.  Well that is interesting and all, but one thing I have learned is that the customers description of a problem is usually just a distraction.  You start focusing on what they say and miss things that would normally jump out at you.

Then he says something that I have heard many, many times.  “I have Norton’s, why would I get infected?”  This is one of those questions that you want to be political with or risk pissing off the customer.  Generally, these infections occur when the customer installs the malware themselves.  Classic example, a pop-up tells you that you are infected and you need to install this “software” to “fix” the infection.  As soon as the customer clicks, “OK”, they are OWNED!  However, you really want to say, “You installed it you dumb-ass!”.  Why people think that installing some anti-virus program will protect themselves from themselves, I will never know.  By the way, do you get diagnosed and purchase you pharmaceuticals from random people on the streets?

A Sack That Reduces the Chances of Wind Taking Your Product

From time to time, the wind blows here with great force.  I have personally witnessed streight line winds of over 100mph!  That a pretty good clip for wind.  While the wind two days ago was no where near 100mph, it was blowing around 45mph according to the National Weather Service.

A couple comes in to purchse what was at first described as a “cable”.  I know, pretty vague for a store that carries many, many cables.  After asking a few questions, we narrow down that the couple is looking for a cable to connect their new XBOX 360 to their router.  You know, for using it on the Internets.  Well ethernet cables come in a variety of pre-cut lengths.  We happen to carry 3ft. all the way up to 100ft.  This couple chose the 3ft. version.

While they were checking out, I asked the usual question, “Would you like a sack for that?”.

The response that I got went like this, “No.  Well.  I better get one to help keep the wind from getting it.”  By it, she ment the ethernet cable.  Somehow, putting the cable into a sack with a hugh opening that catches wind, this will keep the item safe from being taken by the wind.  Really, I see the logic here.

Responsibility

Today a woman comes into the store to rent movies.  This is a pretty common occurance seeing as we are a video rental store.  She looks throughout the store for just the right movie.  New titles are released on Tuesday, so of course, after looking all over the store, she decides to rent two movies that came out today.

After giving her name to the clerk, the account is pulled up on the computer.  What do you know?  There are late fees on the account.  The late fees are for a video game that was rented by her son.  The clerk asks if she would like to take care of the fees.  After finding out that the late fee was incurred by her son, she states that she is not going to pay any fees that are incurred by her son.  At this point I am on my way over to the counter and I hear the entire conversation.  Now I am going to say something to this comment.  Since she doesn’t want to take care of the late fees that may arise from her son, who’s name is listed as a renter on the account, I ask her if she would like to remove his name from the account.

She says that she would like to keep it on the account.  Well that is fine, but I remind her that she would ultimately be responsible for any fees incurred on the account by anyone on the account.  I can tell at this point that none of this is making sense to the woman.  She has no concept of “RESPONSIBILITY”!  She allows someone to rent on the account, therefore, she is accepting responsibility for any charges and fees on the account.  Do they not teach this anymore?

Antenna Adapters

When dealing with antenna adapters, only one thing is guaranteed, the person(s) that you are assisting will have absolutely no idea what they need.

Today we had a gentleman come into the store with a transceiver and an antenna.  Of course, the connections on the transceiver and the antenna were not compatible and an adapter of some type would be needed.  Since I was busy at the time with another customer, the boss helped this man look for the adapter.  My first hint that there was trouble came when I realized that they were standing in the adapter section for an extended amount of time.  The boss then interrupted me to ask what kind of ends were on the transceiver and antenna.  Second sign of a problem, the boss nor the person seeking adapters knew what ends they needed.  The boss leaves and returns with an adapter that to an F connector, not the mini-UHF the person had.  Epic fail, considering that he owns an electronics store.

After much ado, the pair finally decide that the adapter in question was not present.  It appeared that they had been purchased earlier in the week.  Since this adapter is rarely sold, we only keep 2 in stock.  A plan is hatched to cut the mini-UHF end off and replace it with the correct end.  This brought up a new set of problems.  The end that needed to be put on the cable was for RG-8, a rather thick cable.  The antenna cable was RG-58, rather thin.  There was a long period of pondering with no clear solution.  I casually walked over and read the back of the package.  The directions stated that there were adapter for using this end with RG-58.  Problem solved!  Or is it.  This guy can’t figure out how this is going to work.

After a 15 minute processing period, the guy finally decides that this is going to work for him.  I actually got a little frustrated and opened all the packages and basically put the whole thing together for him.  He just needed to solder the thing at this point.  I was very excited to see this guy leave.

P.S.  Does anyone know where I could send the boss to learn about the products in the electronics section on the store?

Stupid Question of the Day

A customer brings a movie box up to the counter and shows me the following:

He says to me the following.  “The box here says languages are ENGLISH and FRENCH.  Subtitles ENGLISH and FRENCH.  What does that mean?”

What do you mean, what does it mean?  It means exactly what it says on the box.  You know, the box that YOU came up to the counter and read to me.  Really man, I think you are going to have to work on your reading comprehension.

RIAA and MediaSentry

This article was posted on slashdot today.  I would like to know when some government agency is going to step in an take some action against these two groups, the RIAA and MediaSentry.  The RIAA seems to be pushing their luck by hiring this company, MediaSentry.  Over and over again, there has been news of MediaSentry overstepping the bounds of what is legal.  The disruption of Revision3’s legal video distribution was what initially caught my attention.  I doubt that Revision3 will see any justice for the blatant DOS attack on their system.

Now a University and two university students in Michigan have resorted to filing lawsuits against the RIAA and MediaSentry (aka SafeNet).  These groups have been allowed, by our government, to harass people of all walks of life.  They seem to be targeting college students with all types of harassment.  They even want the universities to police students behavior, ie stop them from downloading music.  This alone is ridiculous.  Its a classic case of going after the person/group with the most money that happens to be associated with the person/persons “breaking the law”.

The RIAA is too old school.  They need some new blood in their ranks.  Maybe then, they would come up to the times and realize that they need to adjust their business model if they want to stay in business.  The RIAA makes claims that they do this to protect the artists.  I call BULLSHIT!  Where is the documentation showing the money that goes to the artists?  Oh yeah, there is none.  The artists should consider exactly what the RIAA is involved in, attacking the customers.

MediaSentry, a la SafeNet, needs to be fired.  First of all, they have no legal right to do what they are doing.  Second, they use automated tools to attack systems that are responsible for “pirating”.  Well, what was Revision3 pirating that Friday when the DOS attack was launched against them?  Third, any of us who launched a DOS attack against any company would receive a visit from the Feds, complete with a free trip to jail.

There are very few people born in the last 35 years that have not at some point copied a piece of music that they didn’t own.  It started, back in the day, with playing a cassette on one boombox and recording it onto a blank cassette with another boombox.  Then the two boomboxes could be linked an audio cable, which greatly improved the sound quality.  Next came the dual cassette decks that allowed a cassette to be dubbed on the same machine.  CD’s came along and recording those to tape was just as easy and made a pretty decent sounding copy.  After what seemed a long time, CD burners made there entry to the consumer market.  By this time people were already using their computers to store music and now they could make perfect copies.  Now we have .mp3’s and their variants.  Small little files with decent sound quality that allow a person to store and make available tons of music.  So I guess we all need to turn ourselves in now.  Of course, this last paragraph is all theoretical.

Asshole Comes to the Store

This guy comes into our store last week looking to sign up for cellphone service.  The process does not start off well, because the guy has to have a $500 deposit before the company will give him service.  Usually this is a deterrent, but not in this case.  Well this guy manages to come up with the money after having it approved by the people who manage his money for him.  Turns out that he is “incompetent”.  He can’t make financial decisions on his own.  I tell the boss that I don’t think signing him up is going to be a good idea; however, he says that the cellphone company thinks it is alright.

Well, he “needs” a particular air-card that we don’t stock.  The boss searches high and low to find one that will work with our cellphone provider.  Problem is that it has to come from the cellphone provider.  They ship the air-card UPS, but they don’t pay the extra to make sure it will get here anytime soon.

The asshole that “needs” this card proceeds to call and stop by the store multiple times per day to see if the card has arrived.  He generally wants to get into an argument or tell us a pity story about why he needs this thing “right now”.  He is a royal pain in the ass, but, as usual we grin and bare it.

Today he comes in starting the same problems.  You know, I am really just too busy to deal with this shit.  I particularly don’t want to deal with assholes.  I explain the problem to him.  He then claims that we are blaming the problem on other people.  Ok, this is true.  Mainly because we have no control over the people that shipped it or the people, UPS, bringing the air-card.  I assure him that we wish it would hurry up and get here also.  This is absolutely true, as we are tired of this guy causing scenes in our store.  So he puts on another display of stupidity by storming out of the storm cursing loudly.

One minute late he is back in the store and interrupts a conversation I was having with another customer.  He wants to know the number of the cellphone provider.  Oh, what are you going to do.  Call and tell them that we are unhelpful, because the air-card isn’t here.  You dumb ass, they are the ones that shipped it to us.  Maybe you should find a new hobby besides being a prick!