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Wardriving Worries Residents
sphynx99 writes "This article describes how residents of an upscale neighborhood in Arizona are worried about wardriving, a "new method of privacy intrusion and identity theft". Nothing to worry about, though; "The Scottsdale Police Department plans to create a cyber-crimes unit next year."
purely passive wardriving is NOT a crime.
now connecting to their access point and using their internet/network for whatever... that might be, i am not a lawyer, so i cannot say. what i do know is that RF signals are not owned, for if they were i could sue for criminal trespass when the other guy's signals cross my property.
While the article is absolutely informative in a panic-causing sort of way, they're a little off on their history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardialing
While Wargames popularized the practice (among geeks anyway) it was not the origin of it.
It could be that their SSIDs were altered to something else, which is not all that uncommon, especially when you look at WIFI maps. So, if they hop on their laptop, and select the AP, the name could pop up saying "you are connected to XXXX" and that's how they might know something is up.
you can get access into any gated community with an access code beginning with "911" ("9110", "91100", etc.)
:)
if "privatized" = "stupid" then you're right
It doesn't take a month or two if you know what you're doing.
I fail to see what exactly they are going to arrest or prosecute people for.
This is a radio transciever operating completely within legal regulations.
If you don't want me to listen to your router's packets, don't transmit them.
If you don't want you router to respond to my 'specially crafted' transmissions, then tell it to ignore me.
Of course, it's far more complex than that, but current law does not seem to apply to this on the surface. It may apply to your actions once you are using their resources, but only marginally.
-Adam
And don't tell me that this is beyond the savoir faire of Joe Sixpack. Enabling WEP involves checking a box, and entering a passphrase, on a web admin page. About the same level of difficulty as sending an email.
If only that was true....
Setting up WEP at the router is that simple. However, if you're relying just on the passphrase, then all of your 802.11x equipment had better come from the same vendor. If not, you have to realize that the passphrase is converted into four key strings, and type that randomly generated key into each computer on your WiFi system.
For some reason, non-geeks just can't make that connection and all they know is that when they turn on WEP, things don't work.
and this was a big story on the local news the other day. The Stonegate area is a bunch of rich old fucks that shouldn't even be using a computer. From the sound of this article they were probably just reporting some younger people in the neighborhood and assumed it was related to some adware/spyware they have on thier computer.
Sometimes 911 calls the police. I have worked at some facilities where codes like this alerts security. Use at your own risk.
You can easily crack the WEP key in under an hour these days. All ARP packets are 40 bytes (and nothing else is), so all you have to do is wait for one of those, then inject it back into the network. New replies will be generated, and you'll have more data for key-cracking. Repeat 1000 times a second, and enjoy your new AP :)
My other car is first.
...we disagree with the trial court's reasoning that the cordless telephone conversations were not private because of the ease of their interception. Such reasoning would erode the right to privacy as technology advanced to create simpler ways to intercept private communications of all types. ... "[f]undamental rights should not be sacrificed on the altar of advancing technology."...we do not believe that Joanne Stone's use of a cordless telephone clearly and unequivocally waived her privacy rights. The ... testimony indicated that Joanne believed her cordless telephone conversations to be just as private as if she had used a corded land-line telephone. ...Joanne Stone was conducting a conversation on a telephone in the privacy of her own home. Pavlik did not unintentionally or accidentally pick up Joanne Stone's conversations on the scanner, but targeted and intentionally monitored Joanne Stone's conversations with the scanner. The fact that it was easy for him to do so is irrelevant. The type of conduct that occurred in the ...case is exactly the type of conduct the eavesdropping statute was intended to discourage, and which we will not condone.
Actually I beg to differ, manuals these days are written for fuckin morons.
.PDF manuals on CD are worthless. They are not writing documentation for geeks any more, it is all targetted at Joe Average, and if he's not willing to read through literally 3 - 5 pages of setup, screw him I'll go wardriving myself.
Have you bought a Linksys, Dlink or Netgear product recently? If you did or plan to, RTFM, and you'll see that they offer next to no technical information any more.
Even their included
Not sure about US law (or realy even the local ones) but they tend to distinguish between stuff the owner has / has not attempted to secure.
ie if the doors and windows are locked, and you bypass them to get in, it is break-and-enter, but if the door is not locked, it's different.
Turning on WEP could be seen as locking the door - if you are determined to get in it won't really stop you, but it is illegal to enter because the owner has tried to stop you/informed you they do not want you to get in.
I post my wireless research here. http://mb.citiwireless.com/
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-Steve
Huhhhh, I said marriage. http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=marriage%2 0AND%20mediatype%3Amovies
Definitely time for the rest of the nation to get with NH's laws regarding wifi. If you don't take adequate measures to secure your wifi AP then you are responisble for anyone accessing your network and for any damages they cause.
It's cell phones and scanners all over again.
Until cell phones came along it was understood in the RF community that all signals were capable of being monitored. Suddenly with cell phones, every Joe Sixpack is operating a transmitter w/o a clue. When it get's pointed out to them that anyone can listen in, they get all indignant and call their legislators to "do something about it".
I wonder what they would say if they knew that wired telephones and networks aren't generally TEMPEST shielded.
Sheesh, I set up my first wireless network over the weekend, fired up my laptop to connect to it, and, to start out, used a stumbler application because I wanted to see how the network would look to anybody outside. I was surprised to detect 2 other wireless networks somewhere in the neighborhood, one secured, one wide open (the default name was still the vendor name and no password). I did not try to connect, but I could have, and anyone monitoring either network would have seen an obvious signature of a scan from me -- but it wasn't wardriving. I did this from my *basement*. Analogy to tuning into other people's publically emitted broadcasts is reasonable, and not every act of tuning in to someone else's station is with malice, or even intention. My probe of my neighbor's networks was just a side-effect of searching for my own home network.
Acts of stealing credit card numbers and committing fraud are already illegal. Breaking into encrypted and password-protected systems is already illegal. The line is clearly drawn. Merely scanning or tapping into wide-open broadcasts shouldn't be illegal. It all depends on what people do with that opportunity. And if people are too stupid to close and lock their electronic doors, then, yes, the chances that someone will decide to use the broadcast wireless signal for some nefarious and illegal purpose is vastly higher. That's an education problem.
You would *think* that people living in a gated community would already have some semblance of a CLUE about these things!! The article suggests they're most worried about someone getting access to the subdivision to do "wardriving" there. Big deal. Get a proper antenna, and someone wouldn't need physical access.
I think maybe ehack doesn't completely understand that the purpose of a lock isn't to keep everyone out. It is to *deter* theft. If a thief really wants to get into your house (or into your computer), they will find a way. But if you raise the level of difficulty or the chances of getting caught, most thieves will look for an easier target. So, if I'm trying to break into dorm rooms to steal money, I'm going to walk down the hall looking for open doors. If I don't find any, then I resort to lock picking. Most thieves aren't looking for the challenge. They are looking for an easy source of money.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
If I lived in the area of this upscale neighborhood, I would be down there in a heartbeat trying to sell these folks WIFI wallpaper. It blocks their wireless signal, so it can protect against WarDriving, X10 Wireless Cams, and Wireless phone (land line) easedropping.
Of course, I would fail to mention that their cell phone phone would no longer work in their home, as it most likely operates in the same range that this wall paper blocks.
WIFI Wallpaper google search
Edwin Davidson www.Acmenews.com