KisMAC Developer Discontinues Project

mgv writes to let us know that the lead developer of KisMAC, a passive wireless network discovery tool for Mac OS X, is discontinuing the project. Michael Rossberg lives in Germany and that country has recently passed laws that would make his participation dangerous. He urges visitors to take a copy of KisMAC and its source as long as the site is up, so that development might be continued outside the US or EU. From the website: "There has not been a lot of time for KisMAC lately. However the motivation for this drastic step [lies] somewhere different. German laws change and are being adapted for 'better' protection against something politicians obviously do not understand. It will become illegal to develop, use or even posses KisMAC in this banana republic [i.e., Germany]."

Comments

Re:apple security?

[mgv]

... Kismac doesn't break into Apples, it lets Apples passively monitor networks and has some basic attack functionality integrated. Your post might be [vaguely] on topic if this was a discussion about an Apple firewall, but for a passive wireless network stumbler? I don't think so...

Agreed.

In fact, the airport base stations seem to be quite secure from simple attacks.

What KisMAC demonstrates, more than any thing else, is that if you are using WEP for security, you are usually deluding yourself. A decent percentage of WEP base stations will surrender their passcode within 5-10 minutes, even if nobody is on their network.

Its that scary..

Michael