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Free Wireless Networks at Airports
WallytheWalrus writes "Today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune is carrying an article about the installation of a wireless network throughout Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the first of five such airports across the nation to get a uniform wireless network system. The system, which cost only $250,000 to install, will be free to business travellers passing through the airport (who have the correct hardware), and available through a number of kiosks throughout the airport. One can only hope this is the first step towards bigger and bolder public wireless network projects."
the Austin airport also HAD a free wireless network.. but because of the .com fallout, they started charging like $6.95 a day or something... It's sometimes worth if you're sitting there waiting for your flight..
ChiefArcher
LAN Party in Terminal 8b!
Of all the shit they built at that airport and the parking/construction hell it created, this is the least they could do for those of us with nothing else to do while we're grabbing our ankles for NWA.
Mad Apple promotion? Or useful technology?
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
My thoughts anyway..
HEY WAIT A MINUTE, perhaps they'll be doing this and gathering marketing data? Could be easily done, and profitable over a 5 year timespan.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
In other news, 80% of hotels near airports have been shut down shut down due to lack of interest.
Airlines are cheap-ass companies. Next thing you know, when an Airline moves its own computer terminals, they'll say "Hey, we don't have to run any wire, we can just piggy-back on this wireless thing.."
This being the community of paranioa, need I say more?
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
ummmm... who cares? This is a public, untrusted network. So what if someone's snooping? Use IPSec if you don't want to be snooped.
sulli
RTFJ.
This throws back to that other story about how airports are using unsecured wireless networks to check baggage at the sidewalk.
Who wants to bet they're not going to have the security they need to protect themselves because they go with the lowest contract bid?
Scenario:
Felon A puts semtex in a bag, and checks it at the curb, but never gets on the plane. Felon B is inside the airport and reassigns that bag to a passenger who DID get on the plane. Since the passengers and bags now match they won't do a cargo search for the unclaimed baggage.
Boom.
With the ever-growing use of wireless links for IP data, how much more difficult will it become to track down abusers?
If I sat in an airport with a laptop, I could use the (surely) fat pipe of the building to DoS some poor person, and who would catch me? The user reports to his isp, who gives it to the airport's upstream provider who give it to airport personnel. By that time, I'm way the hell out of there.
Of course, I'm using "I" in this post hypothetically - I hate DoS and the packet kiddies that do it, but what security is being put in place to prevent it?
--
grep "xercist"
A transparent firewall blocking non-standard services might be useful, but keep IPSec, POP/SMTP, etc.
sulli
RTFJ.
until l33t w4r3z d00d #1853259 fires up his IRC client and starts surfing #isos-R-us. Guess what happens? Joe Email-Checking Buisiness man notices that he's getting .001Kb/sec, and pummels #1853259, until the *other* guys on #isos-R-us come on over from the other side of the airport...
:)
People are human. Lotsa bandwith+free+no accountability=ISO FRENZY!!!
This
Why go all the way to the airport when you can get plenty of wireless coverage for next to nothing* (here in Sydney at least)
*conscience not included
*** I am the real stylewagon
I have been a huge fan of public access to 802.11 devices connected to the internet. With enough access points at high-density points (airports, malls, coffee shops, etc...), the system could become almost as transparent as the cell-phone system is today, and free at that!
I heartily encourage everyone with a home network and highspeed internet to purchase an 802.11 access point and place it by a window. Just make sure that you place the access point is on the external side of your firewall.
So run something secure between your machine and your destination - ssh, ssl, etc...
There's two ways they could do this:
1. They could make it cheap, and ensure that just about anyone at an airport can get minimal 'net access, or
2. They could make it expensive, and ensure that high-class business-types can get a fat pipe.
Of course, the OPTIMAL solution would be to do both: Rent a low-bandwidth node for $5.00/hour, or a high-bandwidth node for $0.25/minute.
If they choose to only provide an expensive connection for corporate use, though, I'm not sure it'll be a step in the right direction.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
On the other hand, the whole thing might be useful for catching terrorists who felt the need to shoot out a last minute email -- provided that traffic is monitored closely.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Big mistakes for terrorists:
Asking airport officials how to log on to your "al-Qaida Online" account over the wireless link.
Complaining that you can't talk to your "buddy" Osama even though he's on your buddy list.
Receiving and watching a Quicktime video with instructions for committing a terrorist act -- while sitting in the boarding area.
Having your laptop announce "You've Got Jihad!" while in the terminal.
Looking at the bad side:
If I were ever trying to launch some virus or whatnot using one of these open networks would be just the place were all they would have to so was probably drive through the drop off section...
Anyone else see this as a problem?
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
The number of people who leave open shares on their Wintel laptops is ridiculous, as they are used to being behind NAT firewalls and other hard-shelled security, deep in the corporate intranet. Then they move these absolutely defenseless laptops into a completely unsecured network via an Orinoco WaveLAN card--Hilarity ensues.
A public wireless network with a revolving roster of addled sales execs is a veritable shooting gallery, the proverbial barrel full of fish!
Anyway, I will not be surprised when suits rush back to the home office after a stopover in Minneapolis, their laptops having mysteriously come down with the clap.
This happened in the Louisville, KY Airport back in May 2001... here's the article.
Curious that this is happening in some of the smaller airports first. I'd have expected San Francisco's airport to be an early adopter. They certainly spent enough on construction costs to throw in a few wireless routers around without anyone noticing. Still, at least it's getting out there somewhere.
Well, what about it? How different is wireless from an airport different from that shared ethernet in the airport hotel? Or having folks check in from those ubiquitious web terminals in airports that half of the time have cache's full of info?
Yes, it is possible that sitting there in the terminal your stream will get intercepted. So understand/teach others that these aren't secure, that pluggin in in *any* public pace isn't gonna be secure and certainly not at a client's office etc. Use a tunnel back to the home/corporate proxy server or don't go near any important content and *don't* use any passwords.
But don't go getting all upset of wireless and airports, it's not really different from all of the others.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Perhaps this is just a strategy of dealing with the increased delay the FAA is forcing on the airlines?
Your completely missing the point. Security is something that everyone should be aware of and trying to use as much as possible. If they were to wait a year until a better encryption was properly implemented into everyday wireless networking then they could insure a much more secure access point.
Just becuase you know its a public untrusted network doesn't joe nobody does. They feel safe beacuse it's regulated by the airport therefore they will do things on the network you probably shouldn't do in an untrusted network. Just like people who do insecure wireless netoworking in there home and then bitch when all their information and credit card numbers are compromised.
If you are runnning an open network or anything open to multiple users (even a shell server) you should try to protect the security of your users as much as possible, you shouldn't forget about it just because you know you wont do anything stupid on it.
I stoped at London Heathrow a few weeks ago and they have these "XPOD" kiosks or something similar, well they run windows 98 and connect with wireless. I pulled out my NAI Sniffer and found the ip address range 10.10.10.x/24 (if I remeber) then I assosiated myself to the network and found that all the kiosk machines have the 'c' drive shared out - full accsess! and NO PASSWORD. At least the internet connection was a bit more secure, they went threw a proxy server and when I tried to brouse the internet from my laptop all I got was the xpod logo.
.cap files. kruczkowski @ hotmail.com
JKF at New York has some small network, but nothing intresting and no internet.
Frankfurt (Germany) has also some network but also nothing fun, all I see is novell broadcasts.
If anyone want, I still have the NAI
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I have been reading about everyone screaming 'ohh my god! its wireless! its not secure!' or 'the script kiddies are going to go nuts!' You _CAN_ secure this and make sure it is only used by 'good' people (i.e. not the #isosRus user) by simply only allowing IPSec connections out to the world this pretty much elimiates the script kiddie wishing to use 'mad bandwidth' to DoS down someone else and because all the users will be connecting to the rest of the world over a VPN to there office you dont really have to worry about them attacking things from the airport network. Another point of view would be to require users to 'check-in' by setting up a DHCP server that hands out 'dead ips' that can only access one web page. That web page would be a registration page where the fills in the blanks (MAC address, cell phone number, home address, etc..) then a back end script creates a reservation or some other method to privide a 'live' ip for that user to access the outside world. Said airport might also consider (if said airport is not blocking everything but lets say port 80, 443, and IPSec) going with the transparent proxy server that one of the other users talked about. Said airport could also use the customers airline ticket SN# to track the person. You could goto great trouble to attempt to curve the abuse by a few people.. Or you could watch for abuse and disable that MAC address on the network. At any rate. Cheers.
Real men don't use GUIs.
Why would you be bending over for a revolutionary Old School rap act? I mean, Dr. Dre was in N.W.A. and, oh yeah, the Napster thing...
Oh, you mean Northwest Airlines! Silly me.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Second, there are security concerns and as you pointed out, these are two fold. We don't want people snooping the airlines system. On the other hand if we're using the system to say, pre-pay for a rental car at the destination, we don't want people snooping credit card numbers either. There has been a lot of talk in the past about insecure 802.11 networks. It was my impression that these networks were configured incorrectly, and that it is possible (with later high bit key tech) to have a secure network. If the airports were to offer a good secure network, I think it would be of great benefit to flyers.
And then there are all the fun apps like being able to monitor arrivals and departures from your palm. As well as gate changes and whatnot. These can be as insecure as you like because it's really just another way of disseminating public information.
In all I think it'll be a good thing, with problems at first, but will become the norm in time. As far as The Man snooping the network, I think you'll get that no matter where you go. Don't not use a great public utility for that reason alone.
It's free for anyone to use if they have the gear..
What SHOULD they do for security? Nothing. not their problem.
Singapore Changi Airport has offered free wireless Internet access for quite some time now. Hong Kong Airport also offers it, but not free.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Being a resident of the Twin Cities, and an occasional traveler, I find it somewhat amazing that they're offering wireless at all. Not much to say about that.. it could be nice.
However, it's going to be somewhat worthless to offer your travelers wireless without also giving them a place to plug in your laptop. Yes, I know laptops have batteries and don't have to be plugged in to be used. However, if you're like me, you hoard your battery's power for the actual flight instead of using it in the terminal. It *IS* possible to plug in at the terminal, but outlets are far and few in between, and you have to work around the rechargeable golf carts (or whatever they call those things) and other laptop users.
Lastly, with all the other concerns they have at airports these days, I am doubly amazed that they have the time to think about this. Not that I mind, it just makes me wonder.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Uhm, it's because of taxpayer money that the Internet was created in the first place. Would you have complained this loudly is the same idea were brought up in...say..1985?
Well.. what are you expecting?
It's an untrusted network.
Do you have some illusion that nbody can snoop on what you are doing when you surf slashdot normally from home?
How is this any different?
SEcurity must be in the hands of the end stations, not the carriers.
I think it's fishy as hell. As 802.11 adoption increases, profits go through the floor. Or they charge for IPSec separately from other protocols, and people develop work-arounds. Meanwhile, JoeHaxor is downloading .isos all day and tying up the service.
Anyone want to bet on how quickly they stop giving away 802.11 free (or ask the airport for a bailout)? Three months?
sulli
RTFJ.
A-irports O-n L-ine * Featuring a 'wide' selection of Time Warner magazines (with blurry JPEG pictures) * Great in flight Movies (TWAol) * AirCrew with Red Hats * AOL keyword: wingandprayer You have delays!
I can see all of the great positives of this new idea, but I'm scared about something: Airports, especially international ones, have their own particular federal laws that aren't always "user friendly." So let's say someone passes through the facial recognition system and their likeness is matched up to that of a suspected terrorist. The whole airport shuts down and all of the sudden federal agents are snagging everyone's laptop that's been on the wireless network to see if they tried to communicate to/about this person. Maybe I'm being too negative or too conspiracy theorist-like, but I just don't think I'd get into the network until I saw how it was treated for a while.
~ now you know
Can't these be abused by mass UCE mailers?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Do you really think that socializing air travel is a bad idea? A completely deregulated air travel industry would be a tremedous national liability as shown on September 11th. If you're ready to tell me that airlines would sacrifice greater profitability for the proper amount of security, I'd like to see any kind of source.
The present problems in the airline industry come from a lack of federal oversight and funding; to say it's the otherway around is foolhardy at best. Notice the almost unbelievably low amount of new runways and airports built during a period when air travel rose by leaps and bounds - all following the deregulation of the air travel industry.
Unless your advocating the elimination of any airline industry in the United States, I fail to see how your point is at all valid. The airline industry is entirely unique in its suceptibility to attack and role in our nation and the world and needs to be treated differently. Globally, nations with socialized air travel systems provide a far more convenient and secure solution. Perhaps this comes at the cost of higher ticket prices and an increased tax burden, but that's the price of living in a modern world.
I would expect it to use some payment system like in many hotels.. You connect, and it blocks any access until you register. Any WWW site you request is replied to with their registration page.
And, like most other airport goods and services, it won't be cheap.
A suspected terrorist was apprehended today at Franz Kafka International Airport. Security personnel became suspicious when they noticed the image of a bomb on a traveler's computer screen. The computer case also had a picture of an apple on it, which authorities believe may be related to the September 11 attacks in the "Big Apple".
Film at 11.
It's only a matter of time until a "terrorist" sends a mean e-mail from a hotmail account on a public connection, and it gets shut down for harboring terrorists.
Just imagine. A free, open wireless network in which you can churn out spam by the crate.
2. Denial of Service attacks from a single user are history. ...While it may be difficult to track you down to an exact location, you are still in a post 9/11/01 airport. They are on the lookout for strange behavior.
You're missing the big picture. Said DDoS hacker has his laptop in his bag, with a nice high-gain antenna so he gets more range. It automatically connects to the network, then begins scanning all connected machines for vulnerabilites. If it finds one, it dumps the trojan/DDoS client on it- he doesn't care about launching an attack there and then- the important thing is to hack the laptops. Once they're hacked, the software will automatically call home to the IRC channel to await commands. Of course, it'd be smart for the trojan to wait a few hours before trying to connect so the airport wirless doesn't lock onto the IRC traffic and notify the user.
Said DDoS hacker stands at the magazine rack for a while. Then heads to the food court. Maybe stare out the window at the planes, things everyone else is doing, while his laptop is busy finding insecurities. After a while, he moves on to the next terminal. How many machines do you think he can hack in a short time? How many could a small group in a short time? A concentrated effort by a large group at major airports across the country?
Pretty scary if you ask me.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Well I hope you've fathered all the children you plan on. It is indeed free, if you bring the hardware. If you want to use the kiosk, you pay.
This is kind of funny in light of the recent article discussing security devices running on unsecured 802.11b networks (as if there's another sort of 802.11 network) You won't even look out of place walking around with airsnort running...
This is from an American, so it invloves an US perspective and experiences:
Security: In an airport you are always being watched. Its been this way for years. If you log into the netowork, you can bet they'll find you if they want to. Its a matter of determining when the event took place and which wireless "hub" was the originator, then searching through the video files. They get everybodies picture with a laptop, then profile them. Once they have someone they feel best fits the profile, they will get every recording of you, i everyplace you've been on there property. thids means they know what Bus, car, cab, plane, you got there with. This is just basic security work from that point.
Terrorist: this in no way makes airplane more vulnerable to attack. Of course the current security measures in know way prevent the events from 9/11 happening again either.(of course if you pull a knife out now, the other passengers will probably kill you. THAT will prevent another 9/11.
Don't send any data in a public network that you wouldn't post on the front page of a newspaper, ever. If you do, it will be found out. I wish we lived in a world where you could send data and not worry about it, but alas, we do not.
Finally, If you want to know what life will be like in the US 10 years from now, just look at an airport and expect to have the same level of privacy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The "unused" broom closets at Pearson in Toronto were where the employees went to have sex. There was a big scandal about it a while back. There was a whole underground culture among the employees of the airport. Pretty funny stuff.
great place to put a Carnivore... right at the firewall that (hopefully) protects this thing from the outside world.
Until then, oh well.
Anyway, I'm sorry that last paragraph was so confusing. I guess assigning another meaning to the word Airport wasn't so smart on Apple's part.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
Well, they set up a captive portal (NoCat.net) and tell every one that this is not a secure network and they shouldn't do anything stupid. Done.
Tom
>>>Being a resident of the Twin Cities....
>>However, it's going to be somewhat worthless to
>>offer your travelers wireless without also
>>giving them a place to plug in your laptop.
Ummmmmm........ you should fly out of your own airport more. Minneapolis/StPaul is actually pretty good at having desks available in the terminal WITH power outlets.
Sure, it could always be better, but it's about the best airport i've seen in that regard.
A lot of people are worried about script kiddies.
Last I checked, most of these folks were 15 years old. Chances are the only time they will be in an aiport is when they fly back to New Jersey to visit grandma. Mom and Dad won't let them take there expensive laptops with them because they know it will break.
Chances are the'll be too busy looking at the assult rifles the national guard is carrying and wondering what a death match in the airport would be like.
--
The Internet is generally stupid
Set up a public terminal that is running EtherPEG, and pretty soon people will get the message about untrusted public networks...
BTW, what sniffing software do you prefer?
Most flights I've been on (American/United) have a standard cigarette-lighter style power adapter in the seats.
:)
I'm curious if you can setup an 802.11 network in flight or if it will muck with anything they run. I think another thing that would take off well for the planes is having a game/lan server and either cat5 or 802.11. Being able to play Counter Strike/Quake3/Starcraft on the flight would be awesome. I'd pay extra for that capability, assuming you knew other people on the plane could play
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I evidently do not fly enough as I had not scrounged around enough to find all of this.
What desks? Argh!
BTW - I've only ever attempted to use my laptop in the airport while I'm at the gate. I suppose that was my most critical error.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I fly in and out of MSP a lot. On my most recent visit to the airport, they had an area with carrels set up so that you could sit down, plug in your laptop and work. The carrels were even equipped with payphones that had little jacks in the side so you could plug your laptop modem into it and dial into your ISP. It looked new -- at least I hadn't noticed it in previous visits.
But yeah, electrical outlets are generally few and far between in airports.
Steve
everybody else uses Hotmail.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I remember taking a few flights through National Airport, back in the Metricom days. [Richochet, or however they spelled it]. It does sometimes take a little bit of time in finding power outlets, and in making sure you're near them, but if you have a good eye, you'll find them.
[Simple fact is -- they use 'em for vaccuum cleaners. Some airports have 'em in the floor, with some sort of locking panel over 'em...as we can't carry pocket pliers or pocket knives on us anymore, we can't open those up, but quite a few airports have 'em just as normal circuits along the wall, under some seats.]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Now all they have to do is sit at the airport with their trusty wireless laptop and sniff corporate IDs and passwords to their heart's content. At least the company I work for only allows wireless access through a VPN!
This is just beautiful.
As others in this thread noted, I've been to MSP a few times... last time with a 3 hour layover. Just so happened that right next to my gate there was one of these little room-type things with... well I guess you could call them desks. In the same room were drop boxes for mailing, making faxes, etc. It was quite cool. No net access (at the time), though...
Ever hear of a party line, or of a teleconferencing
bridge? This is early 80's technology. You can dial
in, hang up, call back, etc. With a modern cell phone,
you have one-button (or voice-activated) dialing.
This requires no more effort than what it takes to use the
push-to-talk switch on a simplex walkie-talkie. The
fact that you have a persistant, duplex voice channel
once you are connected makes it much better, plus
you have effectively unlimited range. The disadvantage
of a cell phone is that it is not self-contained -- it requires
an external infrastructure in order to function, but this
is not an operational concern outside of a battlefield
environment
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?