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

They aren't doing it to get free bandwidth

[Dancin_Santa]

They are planning on informing companies that they have leaky wireless networks. They aren't doing it to leach bandwidth like most wardrivers.

grumpy old man rant about your tax dollars

[capnjack41]

I bet they paid way too much for those Pringles cans (like their $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats).

So?

[ConsumedByTV]

I do it.
Why should I care if the SS does it :)

Right Kyle?

The article got this one right

[kbroom]

(...)These networks are becoming common in airports, universities, coffee houses, businesses, homes and even some public squares. But they are sold with no security measures (...)
Actually, most vendors advertise WEP as a security mechanism for these wireless networks, but as we all know, it is pretty much useless. I wonder if the writers of the article wrote the above statement knowing this fact, or if they just got lucky.

Re:The article got this one right

[Agent Green]

Just bear in mind that the amount of patience and time required to collect enough packets for AirSnort may take you awhile.

I have yet to find anyone who has really been able to bust a WEP key in a period of less than 4 hours...and this is in a high-traffic lab environemnt. I tried for 2 days in my home lab without success...then gave up.

Several vendors have patched their firmware so no FFs appear in the initialization vector, so Airsnort's use is somewhat limited on those networks to transmissions from other notebooks...and if the site is running Cisco hardware with LEAP, forget about it.

Unless you plan to put a laptop in somewhere and leave it for a few days, don't get your hopes up too much on getting enough packets.

Its Warchalking....

[siliconshock.com]

Warchalking PDF FAQ and check out This site

Check the Lottery

[I_am_Rambi]

Peterson recently drove down a major Washington street and found over 20 wireless networks, many of which had no security at all. Peterson said his probes are part of good police work, like a patrolman driving through a neighborhood.

I know of someone who drove downtown in my hometown and picked up many wireless networks. This included 4 laptops with pringle can antennas. Among one of these networks he noticed the name was the state Lottery, thats right, the lottery. As he looked up, he was passing the building for the state lottery. It is interesting to see how many open wireless networks that there are in a town.

He also informed one company of the open network (he knew the network admin) and immediatly lost his ip for that network.

Is it illegal to pick up the wireless network as you drive by, if you don't do anything with it? Or is it illegal to pick it up and browse the net or both?

Why is this coming from taxes?

[MikeFM]

If companies want security let them hire someone to secure them and audit their security. How is this something that should come from taxes? It makes great sense to audit themselves or anything of key importance but just random wardriving sounds like a waste of $$$.

Re:Why is this coming from taxes?

[mamba-mamba]

From the article:

Chris McFarland, head of the Secret Service's Electronic Crimes Task Force, said his agents have begun evaluating computer security along with other concerns when they scout out a place where the president or other protected dignitary will go.

McFarland said, for example, that agents have had extensive discussions with officials at George Washington Hospital about improving its wireless network security.

While the agents plan to offer their expertise to anyone who asks, they are focusing on places most important to their mission of protecting public officials. The hospital is several blocks from the White House and treated Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) during his heart problems.

[emphasis added]
MM
--

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."

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?

[possible]

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.

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 :)

Pringles Can Antenna

[p00kiethebear]

Ive been wanting to make one of these for awhile now. You can find some absolutely splendiferous pictures here: http://verma.sfsu.edu/users/wireless/pringles.php

Re:Pringles Can Antenna

[packeteer]

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

Personally im glad...

[packeteer]

Im glad my tax dollars are going to someything like this. Not that they are war driving but they are using pringles cans. I mean i personally wouldn't spend my money on a nice antannea so why should the govt. spend my money on one. if a pringles can is good enough for me than its good enouh for the govt.

The FUD is working!!!

[God! Awful]

A quasi-mainstream news source called warchalkers "independent security researchers." That's gotta be a first.

-a

Network Security

[Aurelfell]

Maybe this publicity will create some market for a security product to be used for wireless. A lot of companies don't realize that wireless networks allow potential hackers an easy way around a firewall, and as such, there's little demand for a product to prevent such a breach. If the SS can bring that to light with their Pringles can, maybe that will change. And maybe Pringles will get into network hardware too. That'd be ironic.

Tax dollars at work

[EvilStein]

*munch*munch*munch**munch*munch*munch**munch*munch *munch*

"Hey Agent 423.. got any more Pringles?"

*munch*munch*munch**munch*munch*munch**munch*mun ch *munch*

"No, but I could sure use another Coke.."

*munch*munch*munch**munch*munch*munch**munch*mun ch *munch*

So how do you secure a wireless LAN?

[BinBoy]

Stories about wardialing are popping up everywhere now. So how do you prevent unauthorized access to your wireless LAN? I have 128-bit encryption enabled. Is that enough to prevent bandwidth stealing/snooping or is there something else?

Re:So how do you secure a wireless LAN?

[mgaiman]

Linksys has a fairly good knowledge base article for securing their APs: Here

Re:So how do you secure a wireless LAN?

[ThePlumber2]

Easy, first you firewall your machine to only allow ssh out. Then you create a subnet with only your AP. Then you create a VPN server on another subnet. Install vpn over ssh, train the firewall that is between these subnets and you are on your local network, via a 1024 bit rsa encrypted pipe.

No web, no bullshit. No-one else can use your wireless to get to the internet or communicate to your machine.

Thanks,

Steve

PS You CANNOT rely on the security of these pieces of shit. Most all AP's come with fucked up open ports that you cannot shut down (Web int is one although I have seen that the piece of shit Netgear AP has 3 open ports, one is snmp which is probably open to the snmp trap bug that was out about 4 months ago.)

Seems to me that the manufactures of these peices of crap dont have a clue about security and decided not to give you the option of security either. Netgear of all place (Banyan Vines right?) should know, but when I called them, all I got was some fucked up off-shore help desk (in INDIA of all places) I sat on the phone working through language barriers to finally find out that the tech of course had no fucking idea of what I was saying. They eventually called me back to tell me that there is no way to turn these services off..... My next stop was the store to return their junk. That is when I decided to buy the piece of shit Linksys that i now have (Although it is better if you ask me, and they support linux). No matter what though, you will have a hard time finding one that is truly secure. Take it into your own hands though. I did. In fact, im writing this from my notebook in my bed, wirelessly.

The knock on the door metaphor, Fed Style

[jerryasher]

How many hacking cases in the past few years have just been for just port scanning -- a knock on the door?

Peterson recently drove down a major Washington street and found over 20 wireless networks, many of which had no security at all. Peterson said his probes are part of good police work, like a patrolman driving through a neighborhood.

"I feel it is part of crime prevention to knock on the door," Peterson said.

So that's what port scans are, just knocking on the door, part of crime prevention, and not malicious in and of itself.

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!

They aren't particularly original, either...

[failrate]

Once upon a time, the military-government-corporate-et cetera complex had ALL the cool toys. Now, they are ripping off tricks that are widely posted by juveline nerdophiles. Now, if the government could only figure out how to clone gold, we could get out of our national debt. Best they go to the nearest MUD forum and get a crack off of some script-kiddies.

Too hard?

[phyxeld]

from the article: But they are sold with no security measures, and protecting a wireless network from hackers takes more knowledge than what network installation guides typically offer.

Every access point I've ever setup had simple instructions for enabling WEP. Granted, WEP isn't the end-all of wireless security, but I'll bet that the the SS's definition of "secure" and "not secure" is equivilent to "wep" or "no wep". Granted, most of the networks I see wardriving (airboxing!) have a default ssid like "linksys" or "WLAN", so I guess a lot of users probably never even attempt to configure their AP. But it certainly doesn't require "more knowledge than network installation guides typically offer".