How to screw with those firesheep snoops - FireShepherd (blogs.forbes.com) |
How to screw with those firesheep snoops - FireShepherd (blogs.forbes.com) |
Two big problems
1) What if the DoS affects other parts of the infrastructure like the Wireless Access Point. Can't imagine hotspot owners will be too happy if people start doing this all the time.
2) False sense of security. Using FireShepard is unlikely to stop other means of getting access to the data (eg, kismet), it only stops FireSheep (for now).
If FireShepard were to flood the network with fake personalities and their cookies instead, it might help hiding real accounts.
It doesn't make much business sense, but it fits in with some of Google's more philanthropic initiatives for a healthier net.
The bottom line is that with keep-alive connections, the overhead should be less of a problem, since the only expensive part is the initial RSA key generation.
Also a simple fix for open networks is to enable WPA encryption with a simple password and give it to everyone that wants to use the network. It works the same to the end user (just one extra step) but at the same time protects them from unwanted snooping.
On a side note, all those coffee shops that don't like people solely using their networks and monopolizing tables, this news could push people to use unsecured networks less.