UAPublic vs UAWifi

Why would I want to go through the hassle of connecting to the UAWiFi network when the UAPublic network works just fine and I dont have to bother with the authentication? Is there anything that I can not do with UAPublic that I can with UAWifi

Also does UAWifi track your activity on the network?

Also...does your MAC Address have to be registered to use UAPublic? I registered mine a long time ago and was wondering if its necesary for UAPublic

[Dane Velasquez]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why would I want to go through the hassle of connecting to the UAWiFi network when the UAPublic network works just fine and I dont have to bother with the authentication? Is there anything that I can not do with UAPublic that I can with UAWifi

Also does UAWifi track your activity on the network?

Also...does your MAC Address have to be registered to use UAPublic? I registered mine a long time ago and was wondering if its necesary for UAPublic

UAWifi is an encrypted network, meaning that nefarious characters can't "sniff" what you're doing as you surf the internet. UAPublic is unencrypted and allows for this possibility, so when I'm on UAPublic, I tend not to do important things (like check e-mail accounts that don't have secure logins).

More practically, UAWifi does allow you to do things that you can't do on UAPublic - Most e-mail clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.) you won't be able to use on UAPublic, but you can use them on UAWifi. UAWifi also allows you to use things like SSH/SFTP.

I don't *think* that you have to register your MAC address to use UAPublic, but I could be wrong.

I was wondering why my outlook never worked through the UAPublic, good to know, do they just block the necessary ports?

So the actual traffic is encrypted on UAWifi? and the traffic is unencrypted on Public?

[Dan Parmelee]

UAWiFi = 256-bit encryption

UAPublic = no encryption


All ports except for HTTP & HTTPS are blocked on Public.

[Garret Picchioni]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Also does UAWifi track your activity on the network?

Also...does your MAC Address have to be registered to use UAPublic? I registered mine a long time ago and was wondering if its necesary for UAPublic

SIRT and CCIT monitor all traffic across the UA Network both on wired and wireless connections, keep logs of the activity. If you're asking if someone else can monitor your traffic then Dane's response would be your answer.

You don't need to register your wireless MAC address to use UAWiFi. The only thing you need to do is register your UANetID at https://netid.arizona.edu/wireless_reg.php and make sure your computer is properly configured. We have a detailed PDF file with pictures and extremely easy to follow instructions on our website at oscr.arizona.edu/wireless

If you want to use your Ethernet jack to plug in around campus your MAC address for it needs to be registered, (the only exception being the residence halls, that has a whole different set of requirements).

[Dan Parmelee]

Does CCIT track what you do? Yes and no.

They do not sit there watching each person individually all the time, but they have the ability to if they believe you are doing something illegal and/or against the terms of use.

Originally Posted by dparm

Does CCIT track what you do? Yes and no.

They do not sit there watching each person individually all the time, but they have the ability to if they believe you are doing something illegal and/or against the terms of use.

That would be sad. Guys just sit there all day monitoring the traffic.

[Nick Lopez]

Could be entertaining too, if they fire up airsnarf and watch all the images fly by.

[Garret Picchioni]

Originally Posted by nlopez

Could be entertaining too, if they fire up airsnarf and watch all the images fly by.

I was considering doing that for a presentation, to explain why you wouldn't want to do your online banking over open wireless for example.

[Dan Parmelee]

I would advise against doing it on campus...CCIT probably wouldn't be too happy.

Can the university network administrators open up the ports for SMTP and POP3 traffic until this UAWifi / Vista issued gets resolved? I have a new PC with Vista and it is annoying as hell that I can't send and receive mail in outlook while one campus and connected to the UAPublic network.

[Dan Parmelee]

Use the VPN client with UAPublic.

They will not be making any changes as of right now.

[Josh Harrison]

Clearchannel has taken down their copy of the 5.0 Cisco VPN client. Until the University gets it, anyone who can't get it from someone else is out of luck.

[Dan Parmelee]

Not so...just run a Google search. There are plenty of other sites hosting it.

[Josh Harrison]

This is true - but I have yet to find one that doesn't require authentication as, say, a student of some given university. You can't get it directly from Cisco either.