What to do?

[Dustin Decker]

On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, jose sanchez wrote:

> The only reason I went out and drive around was only
> curiosity. Once I got to theses sites I wanted to know
> if the Network Administrator was doing its job. Now, I
> know what NOT to do next time I set up a WLAN.

There are a multitude of good sources out there on the Internet from which 
to draw this sort of intelligence from.  A decent place to start would be 
the reading room over on www.sans.org.

> I've come to the list to find out what to do. I didn't
> know how to react to this.

Plenty of resources for this too.

> To be honest, I am not scared of this because I know
> I'm not going to be caught; I deleted my foot steps
> and most of the access points were not logging MAC
> addresses.

Not as far as you know anyway.  Any one of the sites you hit could very 
well be a honeypot.  You might already have some sticky stuff stuck to 
you.  There are better ways to learn about this... most professionals will 
suggest that you put together a lab and work against it.

> Since I'm out of work for over six months, I also
> wanted to make a quick buck.

A noble pursuit, even with the most pure of intentions.  Alas, as you've 
probably already come to realize given the recent replies in this thread, 
continuing in your current mode this will more likely present itself as an 
opportunity for financial _loss_ rather than gain.  Take the advice that 
has been presented thus far, and don't follow this avenue again in the 
future.  

It's one thing to have someone _ask you_ (for a fee or otherwise) to
jiggle the locks on their doors.  After which you can offer suggestions
toward purchasing stronger locks, installing various forms of surveillance
equipment to ensure folks getting past the locks actually have a key (vice
a sledge hammer) and other such analogous interests.  It is, however,
quite another to simply start walking door to door all around town, and
looking for homes which have their front doors wide open.  

Once you find a wide open door, it's anyones guess what you will be
presented with.  In the _best_ of scenarios, someone might be glad you
reminded them to lock the door - but let's be realistic, this will be
rare.  More likely, you'll be met by the police at the curb - or worse, 
you'll find a frightened individual with a loaded shot gun just inside the 
door, poised to take your head clean off.

I've probably expounded enough on all of this.  Short answer - you are 
correct, not a good idea to repeat this behavior.  (Think also of the 
respect issues within the community.  You could keep this up and garner a 
great deal of praise from the low-life script kiddies - the the truely 
"leet" folks will look down on you, and professionally you are black 
balled forever.  Just try to get a job then!)

Dustin

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