Internet/ PC security part 2: wireless and passwords

Dilliwala

Thanks

brownboy66

Hi Dilli

Both Nick and Anders are spot on. Yes - if the wireless router is un-secured then someone else with a wireless adapter in their PC would have the ability to "see" your router and logon to it like another user - that is as a LAN connection. Once logged on they would then be able to access the internet (which is a WAN connection). So the ability of the neighbourhood to use your wireless router doesn't really have anything to do with port binding on your DSL connection. No one would have stolen or attempted to use your DSL account details (which wouldn't work anyway) - they've simply become a part of your local area network.

ah gotcha (you had me going there for a minute, wondering how the hell any telco would be able to get a DSLAM to recognise CLI). Yes - its port binding. Had a quick look at some of the the BSNL/ MTNL/ Airtel forums and it certainly is in use (although its looks like the service has been phased in gradually - the end result being that not all connections have port binding).

I have a reasonable understanding of how the port binding works - but that would bore everyone to tears! Suffice to say a combination of identifiers (copper termination port address, DSL VLAN address, etc) are used to assign a DSL port to your logon details - which for MTNL users includes.....your phone number as the user ID. Even for those providers that don't use phone numbers as the user ID, the authentication process will slip the phone number information into it before it hits the authentication server at the exchange. End result - if you supply the wrong phone number for that line terminating on a specific port at the exchange - it wont work.

Dilliwala

And thank you to you too, bb.


So for the 3rd time - if this thread is Part 2, where's Part 1?

Nick-H

So port-binding is ok terminology?

I guess that there is no problem with the same words meaning different things in different contexts --- port binding to me, is the behaviour of a router, for instance, sending all http requests to your webserver. That is 'port 80' is 'bound' to your 192.168.1.whatever. Or maybe I mis-remembered this?

Part I --- I remember it!

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brownboy66

Sorry, I thought I answered that? (I liked to blame my old age - but I'm not that old so I guess its just stupidity)

From post 1 of this thread -

Dilliwala

Oh, the net-banking thread? Didn't say Part 1, that's what had me.

brownboy66

That's what I first thought of when I saw port binding in relation to this, but it basically looks like the same thing I think. The DSLAM is sort of a big router/ intelligent switch and all that's happened is that the VLAN address, user ID with phone number,etc that identifies you connection is bound to a specific port on the multiplexor.

Nick-H

Right! Errr... Of course...

Well, I kind-of see what you mean

brownboy66

Yeah - I'm the same - I understand how it works but couldn't recite and explanation word for word.

Reading some of the BSNL/ MTNL/ Airtel forums - there were some interesting ideas there about what happens with the phone number, port binding, etc .In one forum a guy was claiming that setting your router to bridge mode would allow you to by-pass the port binding (ah....don't think so), and another guy claimed that CLI information was carried within ATM frames (which would also be a neat trick if layer 1 signalling could be inserted into a layer 2 protocol). Thankfully - a BSNL or MTNL engineer dropped in on one of the forums and went to the extent of explaining what the different bits were and how they worked.

Nick-H

You'll fiond lots of guys online who are just horrified that they can't hack it --- or even claim that some router setting gets them a free higher-speed connection! I'm all for working the system, but I don't have much patience with this stuff. When I see the question, "How do I get more bandwidth?", I tend to answer, "Pay for it...".

brownboy66

right on - I'm with you on that one. In fact I recall seeing in one of the forums a reply from you I think to some guy who was outraged that he couldn't use the same BSNL login details (in effect - one account) on 2 separate connections (Bangalore and Mumbai) because he lived in one city and worked in the other!

Dilliwala

BSNL wudn't work in BOM anyway - no jurisdiction.

It used to be poss if u had a VSNL dialup account to be able to use it outside home-base.