[haiku-bugs] Re: [Haiku] #9463: WiFi auto-connect = ticket to jail
- From: "ASoftwareHatingFurry" <trac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:10:58 -0000
#9463: WiFi auto-connect = ticket to jail
-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
Reporter: ASoftwareHatingFurry | Owner: axeld
Type: enhancement | Status: new
Priority: normal | Milestone: R1
Component: Network & | Version: R1/alpha4.1
Internet/Wireless | Keywords: connecting open
Resolution: | unencrypted default automatically
Blocked By: | automatic hacking security
Has a Patch: 0 | associating associated ssid
| Blocking:
| Platform: x86
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Comment (by ASoftwareHatingFurry):
axeld - I'm in the UK, where it's supposedly a crime to do this. Here's
some interesting articles on the subject, it appears it's illegal in quite
a lot of places:
http://arstechnica.com/security/2008/01/the-ethics-of-stealing-a-wifi-
connection/
http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/is-making-use-of-
unprotected-wi-fi-stealing/
In all seriousness I'm not really worried about legal action, but it does
seem like the software should try to do the right thing. For some people
it might be a more serious issue.
umccullough - SSID-remembering would definitely fix the problem, it
wouldn't even have to remember the password (yet), just dump the SSID of
the last-used network into a text file and use that.
For remembering multiple networks, how about something like this?
- Each network successfully manually connected to has a file written into
a special folder in ~/config/settings
- The file has the SSID, MAC address and other relevant information
recorded as attributes on the file
- The password could be stored as an attribute too. This gets password
saving up-and-running without having to wait for a password manager. And
when the password manager is ready, just encrypt the password stored in
the attribute and use the password manager to decrypt it. The password
manager is then just an encryption/decryption service rather than a big
opaque storage blob.
This would have the advantage of being able to easily manage "remembered"
networks in Tracker, with a particular set of attribute columns selected
for that folder in Tracker. Right-clicking the network deskbar applet and
selecting "manage networks" would simply open this folder, much like
clicking the mail icon opens the inbox folder.
IMHO this would be more Haiku-like than some kind of monolithic network
manager program to edit the data stored in a custom settings file or
database. For a long time in Ubuntu I couldn't change the settings for any
of the wireless networks because Network Manager would crash. It would
have been so much easier to just go in and edit or delete the appropriate
single network file without having to wipe the entire configuration!
I also wonder if this same mechanism could be used to actually configure
the networks, including the wired network. Attributes for IP address,
subnet mask, DHCP on/off, etc.? Or is this taking it too far?
In general I like the idea of using Tracker to view or edit data such at
this, as far as practically possible. It's an app the user already knows
how to use, and that counts for a lot!
--
Ticket URL: <http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/9463#comment:3>
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