Gadgetory

hey guys this time it's a question for you our cellular data networks really more secure than Wi-Fi networks why and why not I'm gonna lay out the argument for you and then we're gonna go to you for the answer in this week's Android guy weekly so what's security I mean that's a good question right does that mean less hackable does that mean less able to be hacked does that mean less recorded hacks I don't know maybe it's just peace of mind so we're not really going to define what security is or what is or isn't more secure we're gonna look at some possible security implications on these various different platforms and kind of weigh in on you know how much should that really be considered when we're determining whether we're going to use a Wi-Fi network versus a cellular network or not all right sound good there we go and while you're watching this if you have a comment comment right away don't don't hold back just go down and type up your comment so yes I agree entirely with what Joe the Android guy is saying he's a genius and you know for everyone other than my mom who's watching you know write something else that's more realistic but anyway let's get right into it the first thing that we need to consider is technologies and by technologies I mean you know the types of networks that are out there we've got Wi-Fi okay that's one kind there's actually several different kinds of Wi-Fi but they all share basically the same set of standards so when I say Wi-Fi I mean 802 11 a B G and N and 2.5 meters five megahertz we're just gonna lump all that in together because I can get a router today that does all of that all in one and really a phone that does pretty much all of that too except maybe 802 1180 which nobody really uses much anymore unless they absolutely have to that's a topic for another video entirely on some other channel so that's Wi-Fi we're just gonna lump all of Wi-Fi together into a Wi-Fi hat on the other side we've got cellular networks so the other networks are Wow there's a lot of them there's really just three major types you know you've got your gsm s you've got your CDMA s and you've got your something else's because something else is really we can't define that well we're gonna just kind of put those off for just a minute we'll bring that back in in a little bit so we've got CDMA and we've got GSM two major differences and they are very different in fact on your CDMA device you Sprint and Verizon customers and this is for us people in other countries we don't have you know CDMA all that much so this is just kind of wow that's interesting just take that out of it but for us here in the u.s. CDMA is interesting in that you can have data over the same bands that you have voice but only one at a time if you're on your phone talking on your phone you can't be on the web and vice versa if you're on the web you can't be on your phone it's data or voice not data and voice and the reason is it's all over the same network it's all over the CDMA network of course there are different technologies that enable that in the background but that's it GSM on the other hand your t-mobile's your AT&T s they're a little bit different they have the ability to have GSM voice but they also then have another set of frequencies for data so we're not really concerned with voice in this just data but it's you know kind of important to make the differentiation between the two all right even still there's a lot of stuff inside that we have a video we've got edge we've got GPRS we've got HSPA we've got HSPA+ HSDPA HSUPA blah blah blah blah lots and lots of standards now lots of standards means lots of different ways to exploit something but you can't use the same exploit on one network as you can on another and a lot of the exploits out there are just for the voice side of the his networks not the data side it's relatively difficult to hack them because there are so many different standards out there back over to Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is pretty much standardized you want to break into something pretty much all you're doing is you're breaking into a security overlay on top of Wi-Fi whether that's WEP whether that's wpa wpa2 whatever it may be you're just breaking the security on top of or integrated with the data network itself because of that it's a lot more standard in fact it's a lot more standard across the whole world not just the US where we've got all this regional specific stuff so because Wi-Fi is more prevalent and more standards-based if you will it's likely more desirable at the right term for it for someone to try and hack and exploit then on the other side you know the cellular stuff so using that as our basis Wi-Fi is probably not as secure as cellular data okay let's look at another component my Wi-Fi signal at my house only froze to my backyard my neighbors are lucky if they even see it that's partially because of construction partially because of the antenna configuration and location of the router in my house but really my signals not gonna go much further than you know several houses down the street best-case scenario cell phone on the other hand my cell tower is a mile and a half away that's an awful big radius of people that are covered that could hack just that one cell or try and hacked my information going to that one cell now of course cells are interconnected so it's possible that someone could try and hack me or sniff my data or whatnot from multiple cells away not that likely but possible so you're talking much greater cover of people when you talk cellular which means hey that's a bigger honeypot than just one little Wi-Fi node so in that case cellular becomes a much more desirable target and that might mean that cellular isn't quite as secure as Wi-Fi okay so we've kind of gone into technologies a little bit and we've got one case for cellular being more secure in one case for Wi-Fi being more secure but those are both kind of based on the technology level and they both have you know maybe they're not weighted equally but for the sake of the argument let's let's just say they are that's really not what the problem lies you see there are exploits on both sides so we know of open exploits available on both cellular and Wi-Fi it's just a matter if somebody actually wanted to do it therefore let's just wash that out okay let's talk now about social engineering no not social networking this isn't you know pocket now the new Facebook this is you know getting people to do stuff because people are stupid and I don't want to offend anyone out there people as a group do stupid things a person a person like you watching this video is smart but people in general well we do a lot of stupid things for example I've got my phone right here I've got my Wi-Fi right over there I'm connected to my network everything's great I'm trusted I trust my network everything's good to go I go to work and well it's my work the Wi-Fi should be trusted it should be just fine right except a lot of corporations are really tight on what you can and can't do with their Wi-Fi you know they want to protect their network and rightly so but you'll start seeing rogue hotspots pop up here and there that phone can even tether and with the right app I could sniff all the stuff coming through it and haha now I've got your personal information now I haven't done that and I don't advise that you do that I'm gonna tell you if there are any apps out there that do that or what their names may or may not be but people can do that now take coffee shops for example go to a coffee shop they always have free Wi-Fi right but what's the name of their Wi-Fi is it you know Joe's coffee is it Joe's coffee shop if there are two access points there which one are you going to connect to or how about this if there's Joe's coffee and Joe's coffee - well gonna use maybe you think hey they've got two different wireless access points here for me to connect to therefore you know either one of them I can I can use their doing that to be nice right well maybe again someone has a laptop that's running it as a hotspot and they're getting all that information coming through so really it comes down to trusted networks are you being smart as an individual as a person and only connecting to Wi-Fi umbrellas that you trust that you know I mean absolutely no and Trust is this something that's a public access point that has no security if so I wouldn't even do that I would stay away from that if I were you and I stay away from it because I am me just don't do it because people can sniff those packets you're not encrypting anything you're sending it in the clear it's just a matter of you know putting your ear out there and listening to what saying or as they say in Tron you know knocking on the sky all you got to do make sure you have some level of encryption very important when you use Wi-Fi okay that's my argument for why cellular networks are probably more secure than Wi-Fi networks are not because of technological limitations not because of exploits not because of equipment that you may or may not have that you need to use to hack either network or either system but simply because when I turn my phone on if my Wi-Fi is off I know that whatever network I'm connected to is the one that t-mobile in my case says is OK and they have done the research and they put their reputation on the line to make sure that that is secure Wi-Fi on the other hand I don't know until I do my own due diligence and find out for myself if it is more secure or not so because of that I would say as a general rule cellular data networks definitely more secure as a whole you can make Wi-Fi more secure absolutely turn off your cellular data and just do Wi-Fi but there's so much more work involved there there's so much more research involved there and that's something that someone like me you know an uber geek could do but I'm too lazy to do it and if I'm too lazy to do it my mom's not gonna do it my wife's not gonna do it my kids Wow they won't have any clue and they'll just tell anybody their social security number that asks because but Dad the website asked for it and it said I could get a free ringtone don't do that so that's my thought on which one is more secure cellular data versus Wi-Fi but now it is your turn let us know did I say anything factually incorrect I tried not to simplify anything too much in this video like I have in the past so let me know if I screwed up somehow in the comments below and also more importantly what's your take is cellular data more secure than Wi-Fi why or why not or is Wi-Fi more secure than cellular data why or why not also extra credit here if you want to list some tips and tricks that you use to make sure that your connections are secure and that your data stays secret secure and private let us know that to app recommendations practices stuff that you do we would love to hear that absolutely definitely love to hear that so that's the episode for this week if you thought it was worthwhile or have someone that you'd like to join in give the video a big thumbs up share it with your friends so that we can broaden our viewer base and get all those other opinions in and we can learn or as a group about what's cool what's hot what's not what's secure and really where technology is taking us and where we want to take technology for PocketNow and the Android guy weekly I'm Joe Levi