On Ter, 04 Jan 2011, Andrei Popescu wrote:
The wireless encrypts the traffic only between my laptop and my AP. Beyond my AP the wireless encryptions does not bring any additional security.
That's true, but that's exactly the point: if the wireless network is not encrypted it is trivial to capture the plain-text traffic between user's computers and the AP: you just need another computer with a wireless adapter nearby.
Sniffing traffic past the AP is harder: generally the connection is cabled, so you need physical access to the network, some technique to route packages to your machine (not difficult to do, but also means your action might be detected), etc.
-- It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. Eduardo M KALINOWSKI eduardo@kalinowski.com.br