3 ms·

This just makes me uncomfortable. It's part of the reason why, when I had FIOS (about 4 years ago), I pretty quickly disabled their WiFi and used a separate acc

This just makes me uncomfortable. It's part of the reason why, when I had FIOS (about 4 years ago), I pretty quickly disabled their WiFi and used a separate access point. At that time, the SSID and key were hard-coded and were printed on the bottom of the router, and if I recall correctly, the key was directly derived from the MAC address of the router.

MertsA 13y ago
The key should have been something like the serial number of the router which you can't derive from the MAC and is generally regarded to be a secret.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Whaaa? Serial numbers are not secret, and no one should be regarding them as secret. Where did you get this idea?
  - MertsA 13y ago
    He's talking about some FiOS combo modem/router. Not sure about FiOS specifically but with DOCSIS modems everyone snooping on the line can see the MAC address but if you want to query the modem for something "privileged" like SNMP access back when certain modems would let you do that yourself you needed to know the serial number to authenticate yourself. So yeah generally the serial number isn't anything special but for cable modems it is supposed to be secret and I know Cox in particular also use the serial number as the WiFi key.
- cbhl 13y ago
  1) Any decent device manufacturer should have a record of the serial number of every device they sell. Bonus points if you mailed in your name and address and serial number so you'd be eligible for the warranty. 2) The MAC often is the serial number for many ethernet devices. (Most routers are weird because they usually have at least two or three MAC addresses, but it works out so long as you're consistent about which one you use.)
  - MertsA 13y ago
    For a modem, at least all DOCSIS modems the serial number will be totally separate and is used for authentication to the modem. Not 100% sure about FiOS as I don't have it but I'd imagine they would do something similar to the rest of the industry.
- NKCSS 13y ago
  This is exactly what Thomson did... but they also used part of that info to generate the SSID Name... which is why you can hack any Thomson router that hasn't been altered (most aren't because they come 'secure', people don't change it). Online lookup I made for the Thomson routers: http://www.nickkusters.com/Services/Thomson-SpeedTouch http://www.nickkusters.com/Services/Thomson-SpeedTouch

MertsA 13y ago

The key should have been something like the serial number of the router which you can't derive from the MAC and is generally regarded to be a secret.

nknighthb 13y ago
Whaaa? Serial numbers are not secret, and no one should be regarding them as secret. Where did you get this idea?
- MertsA 13y ago
  He's talking about some FiOS combo modem/router. Not sure about FiOS specifically but with DOCSIS modems everyone snooping on the line can see the MAC address but if you want to query the modem for something "privileged" like SNMP access back when certain modems would let you do that yourself you needed to know the serial number to authenticate yourself. So yeah generally the serial number isn't anything special but for cable modems it is supposed to be secret and I know Cox in particular also use the serial number as the WiFi key.
cbhl 13y ago
1) Any decent device manufacturer should have a record of the serial number of every device they sell. Bonus points if you mailed in your name and address and serial number so you'd be eligible for the warranty. 2) The MAC often is the serial number for many ethernet devices. (Most routers are weird because they usually have at least two or three MAC addresses, but it works out so long as you're consistent about which one you use.)
- MertsA 13y ago
  For a modem, at least all DOCSIS modems the serial number will be totally separate and is used for authentication to the modem. Not 100% sure about FiOS as I don't have it but I'd imagine they would do something similar to the rest of the industry.
NKCSS 13y ago
This is exactly what Thomson did... but they also used part of that info to generate the SSID Name... which is why you can hack any Thomson router that hasn't been altered (most aren't because they come 'secure', people don't change it). Online lookup I made for the Thomson routers: http://www.nickkusters.com/Services/Thomson-SpeedTouch http://www.nickkusters.com/Services/Thomson-SpeedTouch