I was inventorying all the systems on our WiFi and wired network
so I did the following:
sudo nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24 followed by
sudo arp -a and I found nothing extraordinary so I also got on
our Netgear router and told it to cough up a list of attached
devices, showing the same list of stuff that the first two sweeps
found. Additionally, there was 1 mac address with no other
information such as an IP address or system name, just that MAC
on a row all by itself.
I had been looking for our DVD player which has the
ability to view streamed movies and I think this might be it.
As a computer user who is blind, I don't directly use
this player but my wife does. We usually play DVD's from it
however she did use it once to watch a movie off the network and
it worked fine.
I asked her if she remembered giving our WiFi password
and she said no but was given a message to go to a certain url to
authorize payment in order to watch the film and it all worked
down to the monetary slurp so this is not a complaint or gripe
about anything.
My question is, did the link she went to on the computer
or maybe her iPhone use javascript to get our WiFi password and
if so, how did the player get the authorization to use our WiFi?
The stray MAC showing up on the router is probably the
player broadcasting an attempt to get in the network but to do
so, it has to send the password in order to get a DHCP lease
which would then allow it to get on the internet.
I am just curious about how did this work and could a
person cause it to log on to our WiFi network and receive a video
stored on a system here?
I'm not trying to rip anybody off but it's good to
know what extra features are under the hood.
What I am actually thinking of is more like a DVR where a
computer can record a TV show like the old-school VCR's and then
one could play it back through the DVD player on the network.
This player can also update it's firmware when necessary
and we've never been prompted from it for a WiFi password. It
just seems to be able to get through when it needs to.
I guess this could also be a neighbor trying to mooch
WiFi, but I doubt it. Everything with an IP address belongs to
us and there are no odd amounts of data coarsing through our
router that aren't caused by us.
This is a neighborhood in a college town so one must be
careful but not too paranoid.
Thanks for any good ideas.
Martin
