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NatSci 802.11x WiFi Tracker Zeroes In On Users
securitas writes "Techweb reports that IT admins can now track and physically locate 802.11x WLAN users within a few feet using the new Wi-Fi Tracker hardware from National Scientific, based on its DarkStar wireless product. NSC's site says it will also produce tracking-only 'tag or badge' formats so admins are not limited to tracking active WLAN users and equipment. The company is now shipping development kits to its first customers and a technical specs PDF is available. The product incorporates Ekahau triangulation software. This is reminiscent of an earlier Slashdot story about office surveillance using 802.11b triangulation to track and determine the location of wireless network users."
This is really great news for all online gamers, because this allows games like features in this article further down the top page without losing all your money to your wireless provider.
Just imagine all the geeky reallife RPGs you can build using this technique!
There goes my plan to wardrive around my city next year and shamelessy exploit^H^H^H^H^H^Hassist the BitTorrent network.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
You must have a really cheap 802.11 if it's leaking electro-magnetic waves.
Well, maybe my boss will be intrigued to discover that I am sitting on a couch using my laptop instead of sitting at a desk using my desktop; but I can think of interesting games that one can play with this kind of technology. I mean, if you hook this thing up to a wearable computer, first person shooters could be a lot more first person. Will companies be tracking the movement of wardrivers that normally track companies' bad security policies?
I wonder if we can put tinfoil hats on our 802.11 emitters?
And yes, I know.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
AFAIK, the signal strength metric from almost any card is different from any other, making it a highly arbitrary number from vendor to vendor. With that said, Kismet (www.kismetwireless.net) offers the ability to store signal strength and do some nifty triangulation with GPS.
I am interested to see if the product in question can be used indoors for traingulation. Without a usable gps signal, you'd have to calibrate known locations and that seems out of the range of the Dark Star's ability.
FWIW, I spoke at ToorCon in San Diego this last fall on the subject of using a directional antenna and a fluxgate (electronic) compass. We did some coding and quite a bit of hardware hacking, and we didn't get far because one sensor cost around $1400 in raw materials and hardware tests to get one built.
Google for Cassandra or e-mail me if you're still interested.
A bit like:
Office tracking as already in use.
... that just had a vision of Igon walking around with a PKE meter searching for "hotspots".
...
Maybe I watched too many cartoons as a kid
I'm not an Electrical Engineer, but would this system be able to tell where I am located if I'm using something like a yagi or parabolic dish from several miles away?
What if I had a multi-antenna setup pointing my signal at different APs? To make the thing more confusing, what if I had attenuators or amplifiers on some of those antennas?