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Colorado Sheriffs To WarDrive For Safety
rwx writes "The Sheriff's Department in Douglas County, Colorado says it's going to start warning computer users that their networks may be vulnerable to hackers. It plans on equipping its patrol cars with devices that detect unprotected computer networks, and distributing brochures to computer users in vulnerable areas, instructing them on how to password protect their networks."
before governments try to make open wireless relays illegal? I set my wireless connection at home open on purpose...
I don't see the harm. Now if they are doing anything like making notes on who's routers are open for future "fishing expeditions", I'd be concerned, but if all they're doing is saying "hey bud, your front door is unlocked, just ta let ya know..."
Seeing as how most people have no idea that their wireless routers are so insecure by default...
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
Will this limit access on that great free wireless lan called "linksys"? I hope not; I didn't want to have to actually pay for Internet access after college.
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
What would happen if they came to my house? I have a open network (really an access point). We share no files between computers and if someone (neighbors, friends, guys in cars out front) wants to hop on my signal I couldn't care less.
They can get online and I invite them too (network is titled "OPENNETWORK"). I wonder how the cops would respond if I told them that I purposely set it up to allow people to wardrive onto my internets?
What do you want to bet that the police will hassle the first person who:
A) has permission from their service provider to offer a Wifi hot spot,
B) wants to leave it open for the public, and
C) tells this to the police officer who tries to give him a brochure?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
FTFA
... hackers penetrate and ravage delicate
public and privately owned computer systems,
infecting them with viruses...
He also says hackers can upload or download such things as child pornography.
From a famous movie
Let's see:
-I can intercept the data being sent so I can passively and actively (I believe someone made a program that let's one return arbitrary data to webrowsers on wireless networks):
--steal passwords
--steal private information
-Take advantage of unsecured systems as there is no firewall/router blocking the ports
-Possibly change the settings of the wireless router
I can't believe any significant percentage of residential open networks are open on purpose. Most are linksys or netgear or whatever routers, still set to the default channel, ssid and password.
I think the idea of cops (or anyone) delivering a note explaining what the threats are and what you can do to fix it (if you'd like to fix it) is great. Good for Douglas County.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
What do Sheriffs care about peoples' wireless network devices? Unless I'm bashing my wife over the head with my access point, I don't want a Sheriff to even tell me what to do with my freggin' network.
What's next? Are they going to start testing peoples' front doors to see if they're unlocked? Again, it's none of their business, and it's wasting taxpayer money. Stick to your department, which is upholding the law.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
While they're at it, they may as well check to see that people's front doors are locked too. Criminals might break in and use their computer when they can't get a wireless signal.
To surf for porn^H^H^H^H information while they are sitting in the cruiser at a remote location with the A/C running. Hey boss, I'm just in the neighborhood looking for open access points. Child porn is one of the big "boogeymen" out there. I'm suprized they didn't throw "terrorism" in there somewhere.
Cops aren't supposed to armed and trained like the military. Their purpose is to keep the peace and peacefully prevent crime where they can. A large part of that is politely informing private citizens if they see something that could get them victimized. It's not common anymore because riding around with a loaded gun and the ability to bust down doors to raid drug users/dealers (if your stash is big, you must be a dealer). It's just not cool to do such old granny policing when the SWAT offers you the chance to play urban warfare with targets that typically don't fight back.
I don't understand why everyone is getting so mad. It's not like they're going to use signal strength monitors to track the router in your moms basement. They're going to find neighborhoods that have a lot of vulnerabilities and distribute "FLYERS" to let people know how to secure their networks. If you don't want to secure it, don't. They aren't going to knock down doors and force you to do it. In my opinion, what they're doing is just a service. Of course, if they take it to the extreme and start forcing people to close their networks, it would be bad.
The best example I can think of is the police driving through my grandparents neighborhood and noticing a lot of roll up garage doors partially opened to vent the heat buildup in the garage. Do they knock down your door and force you to close it? No, they sent out a flyer notifying people of the possible crimes that could happen as a result of it being rolled up. Am I missing something here?
I'm actually surprised that they didn't do this sooner. There are a hell of a lot of unsecured wireless networks in any city, and it's not like the cops are peeking into anything that isn't incredibly public already. As an experiment, I once spent an entire bus ride home repeatedly scanning for wireless networks on my DS. Most of the ones I found were unprotected, including one which even had the word "secure" (written in l33t, no less) as part of its name. Unfortunately, all of the networks with particularly interesting or creative names were secure, including one called "No free internet for you", and another with the particularly clever moniker of "I steal credit card numbers." Gotta wonder what the cops would think of that one...
The idea that an open network could be used for nefarious purposes is irrelevant. When you leave a tip at a restaurant, you might be enabling your waiter to go home later and purchase some child porn, or maybe even to buy a gun and kill somebody. There are any number of ways to connect each of us and the resources we control to criminal activities. But the ability to connect dots like this is not a sufficient justification for making policy that restricts the way we use or share our resources. Not only is it my right to share my network how I choose (assuming it's within the bounds of my ToS, although even then this is a contract issue and not one the police need to be involved in), but it is beneficial to society to allow this kind of sharing to happen, as people will use that connection for economically productive uses, and waste less time investing in security measures. It seems to me that they should be policing a little closer to the actual specific crimes they are worried about. If they are worried about child pornography, then monitoring close to the supplier is surely a lot more efficient than trying to monitor the wifi network of every single person in the county.
This is very important police work. If there are open APs, people might be able to communicate freely and anonymously. We don't want any of that now, do we?
My other car is first.
Heh, the first response to a story is almost always a snarky putdown; I think it's become something of a tradition. God forbid the story is a dupe, then there's going to be snark overload.
I swear to God, if a news-item such as this would appear on the frontpage ..
.. it's a pretty safe bet that the first reply would be something like this:
One of a Kind <-- You probably won't be interested..
Cases of abuse aside (and they really do happen, perhaps not as often as is perceived, but often enough that nearly everyone has had at least one bad experience), the reason that cops get such a chilly reception is that they do "too much protecting" and "not enough serving". That is, usually people only are interacting with a cop if one, they are in trouble, or two, are recently a victim of trouble. If police departments put as much emphasis on the public service announcement schtick, people might react to them with less chill. But, as you point out, they can't perform that function well if people feel chilly towards them. Its a cycle that needs to be broken somewhere, and its easier to change department policy than to spontaneously change the public's attitudes.
Of course, it might also help if police departments changed some of the policies that feed into the disquiet that most people have with their police, such as the 'blue wall', or de facto harrassment, or discouraging legitimate complaints, or not having a system for filing said complaints anonymously. That might help too.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
C'mon at least make up a better bullshit story than "It's for your own good". You guys are parking on WiFi LANs so that you can claim you're looking for
Kiddy Porn
Child molesters
Porn Molestors
Sexual predators
Kiddy porn predator molestors
And terrorists.
And you'll catch almost nobody except some innocent person as always.
the Douglas County Sheriff's Office now gets free high speed internet from Comcast for their tireless efforts in making everyone pay for thier own cable internet... It's Craptastic!
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
You can find the statistics here
The numbers were up in all but a handful of categories.
Murder & Non-Negligent Manslaughter - 3
Negligent Manslaughter / Vehicle - 1
Sexual Assault by Force - 73
Sexual Assault on a Child - 104
Incest - 15
Robbery - 16
Kidnapping - 72
Assault with Weapon - 80
Assault without Weapon - 551
Burglary to Residence - 446
Burglary to Non-Residence - 186
Theft over $500 - 1021
Theft under $500 and over $100 - 758
Theft under $100 - 764
Embezzlement - 1
Possession of Stolen Property - 106
Motor Vehicle Theft - 245
Arson - 41
Criminal Mischief - 1240
Drug Violations- 569
Bribery, Extortion - 22
Gambling - 1
Fraud - 899
Pornography, Prostitution - 9
Weapons Violations - 35
The douglas county cops need to ge their priorities straight.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Lame approach...that brochure will go in the basket with the aluminum siding ad. Better to leave them an email or an IM: "Hi there, Mr. Joe Blow! We were just driving down Partridge Meadows Blvd while you were browsing www.kidpoontang.com and thought you'd like to read this page about encryption and passwords..."
rj
Actually there was story I read once where the sign 'Beware of pickpockets' was put up by pickpockets. The people would see the sign and check the pocket with their wallet in it. Then the pickpockets knew which pocket to pick.
Amusing actually.