I can’t believe that someone had the gall to do this. My systems are safe enough, because I use long random strings that I’ve been able to memorize, but most of the WiFi networks of my friends and associates — the ones I’ve been given the passwords for — would fall to it quickly. I do have the problem that the last sentence of that post mentions:
[…] But good luck reading the password aloud to your visiting friend when she needs to get her laptop online.
I usually have to type in the password on such machines myself, because while I can rattle it off at a moment’s notice, people seem to have a difficult time typing it in. But that’s a minor consideration, compared to the security of my network.
My router, and I think yours too since you have the same one, has a “guest mode” where you can create a seperate SSID just for a guest that you don’t want to have your password… Of course, then that guest’s connection is unencrypted I think, so it depends on what the guest wants to do, and how much your neighbors will mooch your connection if you do it.
By the way, my password is thoroughly random, or at least as random as a PC can make it, it was generated by an open-source wifi random password generator, has upper and lower case letters and numbers, and looks like gobledygook. I have to have it written down just in case I forget it though, but if someone has that much unauthorized access to my possessions (e.g. a thief), I probably have bigger problems than a wifi password to deal with, so this beats having a non-random password that can be cracked readily.
I’m not aware of a “guest mode” on the router model that we both have, but if it creates an open connection, I probably wouldn’t use it. There’s good reason not to leave your connection available to any random Tom, Dick, or Harry driving by, even if they can’t use it to get to other machines on your network.
I think I stored my WiFi password in KeePass, just in case (highly unlikely) I ever forget it, but otherwise it’s not written anywhere. Nothing deliberate about that, I just don’t need it.
Yeah, for the same reason I’ve never used “Guest mode” on mine. I guess if I had guests I couldn’t trust with my wifi password… but I avoid having those kind of guests. 😉