Network security iz srs bsns
04.11.2008 @ 9:14am
filed under: Technology
So I’m home, on this wonderful ACT Public Holiday known as ‘Families & Community Day’ (which I think is a terribly ironic name, given that it’s basically just a way to give us Melbourne Cup day off), working on web stuff – as any good geekette does on her day off. And then I notice a computer in the ‘Shared’ list of my finder. A Mac with a strange name, like MACMAC12345.
I think, hmmm, that’s odd. Must be the laptop. So I pad on out to the living room only to see that my husband’s laptop is closed and off. We have a wireless network here at home and you can often see the networks of our neighbours. Ours has security, of course, but nonetheless it’s time to PANIC! WE HAVE A SECURITY BREECH!
*insert terrifying alarm sounds here*
I go running back to my computer and restart the finder, just in case the computer is some kind of remnant from when my husband was online. It pops right back up after the start.
Faaark.
I open up the Airport Utility and change the password for the base station and the wireless network, and restart the base station. And the computer pops up again.
OMG. It’s an überhacker living right here in Canberra. A terrorist, no doubt seeking information on Australia’s building industry policy. Or perhaps some radical Islamic fundamentalist trying to assume my Warcraft persona to begin his diabolical plot to overthrow the West, using Azeroth as his sketchpad.
Or maybe it’s just an image of my work computer, put there by my trial Mobile Me account.
Oh. Yeah. A little research leads me to Apple’s Mobile Me page, which says that “when you’re on the road, you’ll see your MobileMe-registered computers in the Shared section of your Finder sidebar, just as they’d appear at home.” I’m currently experimenting with my Mobile Me trial and had only just sync-ed this computer yesterday. Our computers at work are named with a schema where they start with the acronym of your department (MAC ... Marketing and Communications Divisioin) and then the type of computer it is (MAC or PC). So MACMAC12345 is definitely my work computer.
/facepalm
Crisis averted. Terrorists thwarted. Move along, nothing to see here.