Secret Service Goes War Driving

JSC writes "Looks like the Secret Service is taking a page from the WarDriving handbook. Your tax dollars at work includes springing for the Pringles can for the antenna."

Comments

Re:They aren't doing it to get free bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet more subsidies.

So my tax dollars are being spent on sending the secret service to do a private business's job for them?

What's next? Do I have to pay the government to go in and help companies decide what pleasing colors to paint their hallways and do ergonomics checks?

So when the SS does it now it's okay?

[lannocc]

I find it interesting that when the Secret Service goes around wardriving and alerting network owners of insecure networks it's okay, but then Joe "gray"-hat hacker does the same thing these same network owners attempt to prosecute the individual.

Re:So when the SS does it now it's okay?

[ShaunC]

I find it interesting that police officers can drive over the speed limit and run through red lights with their sirens on, but if Joe "gray" hat driver does the same thing, he gets a ticket or goes to jail. Give me a break dude.

On the other hand, to use several often-touted analogies, a police officer can't walk into my house at will and fill his Thermos from my coffee pot, he can't just trot into my office and start using the company's T3, and unless he has damned good reason, he'd better not be walking up to my back porch and jiggling the doorknob. Doing any of the above without a warrant or some other valid reason to make entry would quickly get him in trouble if not fired.

I know these analogies are flawed, but so is yours. A police officer (at least around here) isn't allowed to go 90mph or fly through a red light unless he's responding to an emergency call or pursuing a known felon. I don't believe anyone called up Agent Peterson and asked him to come check out their WAP on the double; it seems much more to me like he's just poking around. He's doing it under official directive, without a doubt, but that doesn't necessarily make it right.

Why is it that it's OK if Agent Peterson goes wardriving and maybe does a bit of snooping to probe a network, but if we do it, we could be sued or perhaps even branded as hackers (or terrorists, or whatever word they're using nowadays) and tossed into the clink? Why is that Agent Peterson can throw together a decent gain antenna made out of a Pringles can and look like a genius for using limited resources, but if we do that, we're frowned upon since we used a few raw materials for something other than their obvious purpose? Why is it that Agent Peterson is likely praised among his peers and the D.C. community for "protecting" government and corporate interests, yet you or I would wind up facing stiff penalties under the DMCA for using the Pringles can as a "circumvention device" to gain "unauthorized access" to this or that network, even if we had the same basic ideals (improving security) in mind?

"Because he works for the Secret Service" is not really much of an answer IMO. I can't go around murdering people I don't like, but neither can Secret Service agents; membership in the law enforcement community is not a carte blanche. If it had been a Secret Service agent who discovered and pondered publishing the flaw in HP's Tru64, would HP still have threatened with the DMCA? You're damned right they wouldn't have.

My point is that it's all perception. If ABC Corp. gets a call from the Secret Service saying "Your wireless network is insecure, I could use it to do something nefarious," the IT goober is notified; and either the network is locked down or the incompetent IT manager is fired, tout de suite. If ABC Corp. gets that same phone call from a curious layperson, ABC Corp. gets on the phone with its legal team, subpoenas the phone records, and files suit against the "terrorist hacker perpetrator."

This is wrong, and the underlying perception is one that we're going to have to work very hard to change.

Shaun

P.S. Hi USSS, are you still reading? My homepage hasn't had any hits from eop.gov lately, I feel neglected :)

Re:Pringles Can Antenna

[packeteer]

also for the more technically inclined... yah right like im going to find some of them on slashdot...

Re:Why is this coming from taxes?

[commodoresloat]

Your libertarian government is killing business.

Business that can't survive in a free market doesn't deserve to survive. You might as well write "your democratic government is killing monarchy."

Re:The knock on the door metaphor, Fed Style

[h0tblack]

In the article they say that this "...is part of a new government plan to build relationships with businesses so that they will feel more comfortable reporting hacking attempts to authorities". I'm sorry, but if your in a company and you get a Secret Service guy literally knocking on your door and telling you he's been scanning your network, how does this improve relations. I'd guess most people would run a mile!