Geekonomics

And you thought your Wi-Fi was safe?

This geek has been playing his role as digital nomad and visited more than 10 cities in the past 30 days, from Indianapolis to Osaka, and from Beijing to Moscow. I have lots of tales to tell you, but the scariest yet is the truth that your Wi-Fi is not safe, regardless of whatever security encryption and measures you have for it.



In Wuhan, I came across a Chinese news report that you can go to the Chinese technology retail shops and get this box which basically gives you a Wi-Fi range of 300m or more. The technology allows to you crack open any Wi-Fi network, no matter how protected they are, for a mere few hundred Chinese yuan.



Of course, being the curious geek that I am, I tried to suss out the device at the shops when I was in Beijing. Alas, after the news reports, these products have not only disappeared from shelves, they seem to have vanished from the black market, too. Which I think is great news for everyone, except that there are probably at least a few thousand amateur Chinese hackers out there already armed with this wireless hacking technology, eager to try it out... on your network.



So, what's the risk? First of all, if a hacker can get into your network, there's a good chance she (who says a hacker has to be a "he"?) can get into your computer and access your files. Secondly, a hacker can not only slow down your Internet, she can increase your bills if you are on some kind of volume-limited broadband plan. Most importantly, if a hacker uses your network to access the Internet, he or she can do illegal transactions, visit illegal sites, and it would be your IP address that is marked, not the hacker's.



That's the downside about being so connected and wireless. What can you do about it? That my dear reader, is a question to be answered another day, I'm afraid.



Signing off from somewhere deep inside China.

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