They always knew it could be done; that a hacker with enough time and processing power could watch your WPA-protected wireless network and, eventually, decrypt your precious datas. In under 15 minutes, though? “Inconceivable!” those hypothetical security experts would say — but they’re about to get a lesson from WiFi wizard Erik Tews. He’ll be giving a presentation next week at the PacSec Conference in Tokyo, describing the “mathematical breakthrough” that, he says, enables him to crack WPA-TKIP in 12 to 15 minutes.

I don’t have a DHCP server running, so anyone who wants to use my wireless needs to configure a static address on the correct subnet. I’m happy to do this for guests who don’t know how, but drive-bys are strictly on the do-it-yourself system.

If you’re a complete networking neophyte (not that many of those probably read Techdirt), you should probably get some advice from someone more technically savvy about good Internet security practices. Actually, you should do that whether or not you choose to open your wireless network. But on the list of potential network security threats, an open wi-fi network is probably pretty low on the list.

Instead, I’ve provided network access to innumerable people — people like me: I can’t count the number of times I’ve had my ass saved by an open wireless network at the right moment (e.g., in good time to help me look up directions, a phone number, or flight details). I figure the more open wireless I provide to the world, the more people I’ll turn on to providing their own open wireless access, and the more open WiFi I’m likely to find.

By Glenn Fleishman

I don’t advise opening your home network because securing your desktop computers and even laptops is so much of a hassle most of the time, that simply disabling local network access—over which more attacks can be launched because many firewalls consider the local network a trusted network and lower their defenses—is the lowest-hanging fruit for average users’ protection.

It doesn’t sound like anything is wrong with that. People really worried about abuse could set up monitoring systems on their home networks.

It is easy enough to use a Mac program like Eavesdrop to watch the traffic on your wireless network. Anything not encrypted comes up as clear as day.

I can understand the skepticism of others. I am heeding Schneier’s advice and running it open for a while. Naturally, I am tracking what happens across my network.

We will see how sensible it proves in retrospect.