[Talk] How secure is wireless, in practical terms?

[Adam Glass]

Hi all,

In practical terms, if one uses a wireless router with a reasonably
complex WEP key and restricts connections to known MAC addresses, how
easy and how time consuming is it for someone to sit in their car with
a laptop and read your water bill as you view it on your own web
browser, etc?

Part of the same question:  Is it possible for someone sitting in
their car with a laptop to figure out what MAC addresses are allowed
by the wireless network, so the bad guy's laptop can spoof a valid MAC
address?  If it is possible, how hard and how time consuming is it?

I'm looking for comparison only between wired and wireless here ...
obviously using SSH tunnels and secure websites adds more security,
but leave that aside for now.  Pulling cable is a pain and if wireless
+ WEP + MAC address filtering is about as good, I'll go that route.


Thank you!
--Adam