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Wardriver Charged with Theft of Communications
BiggsTheCat writes "A number of news sources are reporting that a Toronto man is the first to be charged with "theft of communications" (Canadian Criminal Code S. 342.1) for downloading child pornography using someone else's residential wireless network. The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street, with a laptop in hand. The Edmonton Sun warns that 'War Driving ... is becoming more and more common among perverts trying to avoid online detection'. Yeah."
Wow! I wonder if they told the owner (s?) of the Internet connection he was using? Can you imagine that phone call?
I guess it doesn't say much for the intelligence of the idiot involved. Why drive around? Why not find a good signal and park? I've sat in my car using my laptop before -- never got questioned. Of course I wasn't driving (and I was fully clothed). It's hard to consider this a victory against war drivers or child abusers when the champ was only caught because he was being an idiot....
I also doubt this will bring any major attention to the underlying problem (unsecured home APs). It'll probably take something like Grandma Jones being charged with transmission of child pornography to bring this problem to the general publics attention. I feel bad for the innocent person who is going to wind up being charged (sooner or later -- if it hasn't happened already) by cops that don't know what is going on -- to be defended by a lawyer who probably doesn't know what's going on -- to be tried by a jury who doesn't know what's going on. Scary situation to be in.
Or is the more scary thought being nabbed by RIAA (whose burden of proof is a lot less then the cops) for some punk teenager next door using your connection to download/share mp3s? Wonder how long (or if it already has) until this happens?
Either way, your into thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars worth of legal fees. The former case is definitely the worst (who wants to be labeled as "that guy" with all the child porn), but either scenario seems likely to destroy/severely set-back your life.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I thought Michael Jackson was driving through Las Vegas last night, not Canada.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
You'd think he would be more careful. Driving the wrong way up a one way street, no pants, whacking off to kiddie porn? This guy was asking for it!
The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street, with a laptop in hand. I'm trying to figure out how he was driving if he had the laptop in one hand and, well you know where I'm going with this...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
"with a laptop in hand."
That's not a laptop, officer.
Karnal
Theft, child porn, indecent exposure, and a traffic violation all at the same time? Surely he could have killed someone and committed some sort of business crime to complete the spectrum of criminal activity.
...at least not during the same time. Sorry, but i thought that to be common sense. This Person is not a Wardriver but an complete idiot. "Real" Wardrivers do not wardrive for the sake of downloading or getting a personal advantage, but just for the fun of finding and mapping unsecure networks.
The guy was arrested for kiddie porn and this theft of communications crap was tacked on, because, they could.
Contribute to the greater good, bust those wardrivers.
Is the person who ran the unsecured AP in any way liable for what was done from his connection?
This case could be used as further proof that if an illegal attack originated from your internet connection it doesn't provide reliable proof that you actually did it (Or that any authorized users at that connection for that matter).
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
Fuck, I'm on someone else's wireless network right now.
--#!
Had the ISP been subpenoed they would turn over the necessary logs, show their cutomer's IP address (on his router) as the offender. How many perverts will turn this around the other way? Buy wireless routers, leave the settings wide open, download their kiddy pron at heart's content, making sure to always get rid of temp files, history, and cookies. If they get busted, the simply say, "it wasn't me, someone hacked into my wireless router, and downloaded that stuff on their onw machine... Shows we need to hold net admins (even of SoHo's to some standards of use.
Could we have our hardware manufacturers include non default SSID's, on a cdkey type set up process, so the default isn't "default" or "linksys" but "As3deyt#$seKJ34". Changing it upon sucessful install should still be allowed, but at least we've reduced those that just leave 'em as they got 'em outta the box.
At the moment the wireless security that ships with routers is inherently insecure, but some places seem to thin it's necessary.
I have already been castigated by the university for running a WiFi node that doesn't conform to their requirements (WEP is disabled) - even though it's ad hoc, there is no DHCP, each host on the wireless net only accepts ssh connections from hosts with known IPs and mac addresses and oubound routing (from connections terminated with ssh against into an authed socks proxy) is stictly controlled. Turning on WEP too would drop speeds to a useless level for little extra benefit.
Maybe new standards will change this, but for now the media should really stop focusing on WEP as the be all and end all of security to the detriment of people competent enough to handle it themselves in a better fashion.
Beep beep.
So he can whack off, use a laptop for hacking AND drive a car at the same time?! He must be a very flexible man!
The Edmonton Sun warns that 'War Driving ... is becoming more and more common among perverts trying to avoid online detection'.
Well, this guy did avoid online detection : he was caught with road detection, driving the wrong way half-naked. It's not like the owner of the unprotected wifi AP called the cops, he was just acting odd on the road.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Aside from the charges made against him for the perverted video he was watching (and not to belittle the charges) it would seem that there is a major point that he has been charged with "Theft of Communications".
This would suggest that all "Wardrivers" are at risk of being prosecuted for "Theft of Communications" regardless of what data they recieve over someone elses network.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Gillespie said the man used Kazaa, a popular file-sharing web program commonly used to share music, to download the graphic material.
In a study using 12 words associated with child pornography, the U.S. General Accounting Office found that 42% of 1,286 files on the peer-to-peer site contained child porn.
Those figures didn't surprise Gillespie.
What are these idiots on? There are a lot more than 1286 files available via Kazaa, morpheus, etc.. It's not a "site" and there is no way that 42% of it is child porn.. That is absolutely nuts. Most of it is Movies and MP3's There is a fair bit of regular porn as well. If 42% were child porn, that would usurp every single other category.. That stat is just stupid. The sad part is that there are loads of people out there who will believe that nonsense without even bothering to run the numbers..
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
I'm surprised how many people have unsecured wireless access points. I'm not talking about WEP, just basic access restricton based on MAC address. I have a Linksys wireless router, and I have it set to only allow certain wireless MAC addresses to connect. If a friend with a wireless laptop is visiting or for some reason I get a new wireless adapter, all I have to do is log into the router from a wired computer or one that already has access , find the denied MAC address in the access logs, and allow it access. Nothing has to be done on the client machines, and I don't have to worry about wardrivers.
This story should be rated M. It has many sexual references, including:
"laid"
"busting"
"police found the driver--with no pants on--" (so they find that guy but couldn't find their pants first?)"
"serious ramifications"
Check out this author's hidden meanings! I think we know who's going to be applying for that spot of porn viewer at that PD! "I'm just doing research for my next article!"
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Investigation showed the man had hooked into a wireless computer network at a nearby house to gain access to a resident's Internet connection and download images from child pornography websites.
The scheme, known as "war driving," allows a computer with wireless Internet capability to tap into a wireless home network and access the World Wide Web, usually without fear of discovery.
Well there's a nice bit of yellow-press tradition. Linking war driving strongly to the child porn aspect and never mentioning that most people who do this aren't doing anything illegal with the information or access they're using. In fairness to the story, most of it was about how stupid in general this guy was being and the disgusting stuff found at his residence later, but three paragraphs at the end of the story seems to shift a lot of attention to a very minor aspect of the crime. He could have been collecting that junk from his home cable modem connection just as easily.
"The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street, with a laptop in hand [downloading child pornography]."
I should think that perhaps the "Theft of Communications" charge is the least of this individual's problems. That's really one for the record books there, almost to the point of being a publicity stunt of some sort. Naked from the waist down, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, using a laptop, and downloading child pornography. What do you say to something like that? I mean that for each person.
[Suspect] "There a... problem officer?"
[Officer] "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
-blank stare-
[Officer] "You were driving the wrong way down this one-way street."
[Suspect] "Oh my, well I'm sorry about that, officer..."
[Officer] "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to write you a... hey, where are your pants?!"
[Suspect] "Oh.. well.. I'm getting them clea..." -gets cut off by cop-
[Officer] "What is that? Are you using a laptop computer while driving sir??"
[Suspect] "Well, I uhh..." -gets cut off again-
[Officer] "What the HELL is that??!! Is that child pornography??!! Oh God..
[Suspect] "No, no! It's not what you think!"
[Officer] "Just where the hell are you getting that from?! Oh, so you're connected to someone's wireless internet from here???"
-Cop thinks to himself: "how the hell am I going to write this one up?"
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I guess that open WiFi router didn't have the Belken auto-anti-pr0n nagger eh?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Excuse me, whose rights online? I know I don't feel the least bit oppressed.
Am I to believe that there's a large enough segment of Slashdot users who would drive around downloading child porn to make this a "your rights online" issue?
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
From the Canadian Criminal Code, S.342.1 Unauthorized Use of Computer:
Doesn't that make a URL a "computer password?" Would I be guilty of violating S.342.1 by telling my friends to go to goatse.cx or tubgirl.com?
It's fun to surprise our friends (and enemies) with URLs like those, but the "colour of right" is definitely lacking from such a gesture.
--
Power to the Peaceful
CP issues aside, how can you be convicted of 'stealing' when you used a presumed open/free service.
Since public wireless does exist, and isn't that uncommon, you can safely assume that if you run across an UNSECURED signal its for public use... Be it from a persons house or the nearby cyber cafe.. you cant be 100% sure where that signal is coming from anyway....
Now if its encrypted, or otherwise secured , THEN you might have a case...
However, considering 90% of home broadband is flat rate, ( and a lot of dedicated business service is too ) since when is the bandwidth being 'stolen'? that's almost as bad as saying music piracy is theft.. ( if the home owner had pay per use, or if you blow their monthly cap and incur charges.. sure, then its theft of service.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The breakdown by common file type is roughly:
The basis for this is about one petabyte's worth of indexed files, so it's not some out-of-thin-air numbers.
Just from this, saying that 42% is porn, much less CHILD porn, is way out. We already knew this, but I thought it interesting to back up the statement with some numbers.
To give more real numbers on child porn, when I did check for it at one time, I found 12 suspicious-looking file names from a database of several million files. That's a LITTLE bit lower than 42%.
...Warjacking?
wearing a seatbelt?
Sig it.
link here
"For all his success at bringing Microsoft's warring constituencies together, there are still things beyond Bill and Steve's control. "I was in a hotel in Sun Valley last week that was not wired," Ballmer recalls. "So I turned on my PC, and XP tells me there is a wireless network available. So I connect to something called Mountaineer.
"Well, I don't know what that is. But I VPN into Microsoft. It worked! I don't know whose broadband I used," he chuckles. "I didn't see it in Bill's room. I called him up and said, 'Hey, come over to my room.' So soon everyone is there and connecting to the Internet through my room."
So was that a crime?
DISCLAIMER: Not knowing Canadian regulations, my post treats this event from a U.S. perspective only, as it relates to wireless networks here. I'm addressing the network access issue only, not defending kiddie porn, driving naked, or driving in the wrong direction.
As I see it, there was no theft of "communications". He didn't break into any computers, nor block/alter/view data coming in and out of them. There is no indication that he did anything to bypass security measures of either the network or the machines on it. There is no indication that he did nor intended any harm to the network or its users.
He used net connectivity, apparently with all hardware functioning as designed and configured. It is the operator of the network that is responsible for configuration including access permissions. Many run hot spots intentionally, some through ignorance. In either case, the host is functioning as an ISP. What's relevant here is regulation of the wireless access to the ISP.
In the U.S., 802.11b hardware is allowed unlicensed use of spectrum, as regulated by part 15 of the F.C.C. rules. Part 15 products are required to include a notice: "Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) this device may not cause harmful interferrence, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undersired operation." Harmful interference refers to that affecting licensed communications only. Are there licensed users of this spectrum? Yes.
All ham radio licensees (except Novices) are authorized by the FCC Rules, Part 97.301(a) to use all operating modes in the 2390-2450 MHz band. 802.11b equipment is not allowed to interferre. A ham could reasonably ask anyone using 802.11b gear to stop operating if they cannot otherwise correct an interferrence problem (typically by changing channels, lowering power, reducing antenna height, changing location, using a directional antenna etc). The 802.11b gear operator has no regulatory protection against interference from the ham operator, other 802.11b users, or even microwave ovens which operate in-band at 2450 MHz.
In summary, 802.11b gear is unprotected from interference, and the operator of such gear is on their own to try to make it work as desired, with no guarantee of success.
802.11b hardware is being used as designed when people, known to the host or not, access open networks. It isn't communications theft nor is it tresspassing.
In the newspaper, after listing a number of really stupid things he found, one officer said "I don't make this stuff up." Yep, they were that bad. (One person was watching a movie -- at highway speed.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The "War Driver" was caught naked from the waist down driving the wrong way down a one-way street
Driving the wrong way down a one-way street?
HOW SICK CAN YOU GET?
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Here's the true lesson: if you wardrive, drive on the correct side of the street.
On another note: Do not look at child pornography. Do not drive with your pants down. If you wardrive, warchalk. If you are a FREAKIN IDIOT DO NOT WARDRIVE!!!!
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
Using free Wi-Fi networks
Bullshit. It wasn't free, it was unsecured. There is a difference, and dont try to kid yourself otherwise.
is that they are easier to secure. No network jack that is physically accessable is a real good front line security. I know that is's not bulletproof but it's a lot harder if the guy has to break into my house first. Theres a price one must pay to use wireless. I will be sticking with my 100Mbps ethernet and live with the "annoyance" of running a jack to anywhere I need internet access.
Got hosting
sometimes it's very handy that people keep their wireless networks open. :)
a few weeks ago we moved into a new office, and of course the phone company was too late with fixing our ADSL connection. So instead of losing two days of work, we could "borrow" the connection from two wireless networks to choose from. One was DHCP and the other I had to sniff the network to find out which IP address I could use
Ricardo.
We all agree here that the story is ridiculous. But it seems to me that the journalists are just adding to that, not making it clearer.
:) ;) "Police child exploitation section" - I though those guys were supposed to serve and protect, not to exploit the kids... :-) Is there even a thing such as an old child?
1) What the hell is "Sun media", is it even remotedely similar to "Sun" in the UK?
2) "watching a movie on his laptop of a 10-year-old girl performing fellatio on an adult" - how does this scribbler know about that? Does the police tells this kind of info at press conferences? How do they know the age? I smell bullshit.
3) "Stealing Internet, or War Driving as it is sometimes called, is becoming more and more common among perverts trying to avoid online detection." and "A man... has become the first man in Toronto charged for allegedly stealing an Internet connection." - well, how do they know about all that perverts if they have only busted one?
4) This quill-driver thinks that saying "allegedly" a lot allows him to write any kind of crap... Sadly, it seems to be true.
5) The movie can easily be closed by pressing Alt+F4, takes only about a second. Unless the policeman run to the car and busted the door open, I don't think the cop had a chance to see it playing. I mean, even my parents don't usually manage to catch me watching movies of 10-year-old girls performing fellatio on adults - and they only have to open the door.
6) As a side note, I like the department name.
7) "They recovered 10 computers and thousands of CDs and floppy disks" - yeah, sure. We have a guy who can break into wireless networks and he still stores images on floppies. Puuuhhlease! Not to mention that even one thousand of CDs is one terabyte of data, which is fucking huge. People who can collect that much child porn, don't usually drive naked, while watching child porn and masturbating. Ergo, the scribbler is probably lying again.
8) "It involves some of the worst child pornography that we've ever seen" and "it's becoming typical of what we're seeing" - that's in the same paragraph. Can't you at least decide whether it is the worst or something you see every day?!
9) "child pornography... including young children and babies". Well, I thought the point of child porn was that it features young children.
Some of these concernes may be unwarranted, but overall the story reads just like a million or so of stories about scary paedophiles (although I applaud the officer for using the words "like-minded people" instead of "evil paedophile scum").
Some more info about Internet child porn: original version and a censored version at Wikipedia.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.