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Australian Police Plan Wardriving Mission
bfire writes "Police officers in the Australian state of Queensland plan to conduct a 'wardriving' mission around select towns in an effort to educate citizens to secure their wireless networks. When unsecured networks are found, the Police will pay a friendly visit to the household or small business, informing them of the risks they are exposing themselves to. Officers also hope to return to surveyed areas within a month to see if users have fixed their security settings. The idea is modeled on another campaign where officers walk around railway stations checking cars have been locked, and leaving notes warning people of the dangers involved with leaving their vehicles unsecured."
"checking cars have been locked, and leaving notes warning people of the dangers involved with leaving their vehicles unsecured."
So, as a criminal, the police have saved me the trouble of having to work out which cars are unlocked by flagging them up for me?
Slightly more on topic, is there a law against leaving your network open in Australia? What if I'm just being helpful, will they continue to badger me until I lock down my access point?
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Seems like some kind of pseudo threat to me. What are they implying, that if some criminal uses their open access port to post goat porn to /b/ the home owner is going to be criminally liable? What if you _like_ having an open access port, and don't mind if your elderly neighbors use it occasionally to check their email? Quite frankly it doesn't seem to be the homeowner's job to lock the world down in order to prevent crime, especially crime that can be remedied by pulling a plug, if it ever actually causes the homeowner to lose bandwidth. Come to think about it, it's not the cops job to prevent crime either.
So, who exactly is this benefiting? My guess would be whoever provides ISP service has been hitting up their political puppets... after all, your 60 year old neighbor should get with the times and start paying $100 a month for internet access like all the other good citizens.
They will say that by doing it deliberately you are aware of and accept the risks and responsibility of unknown third parties using your network to do illegal things... So if someone decides to download a bunch of kiddie porn through your open wifi, the cops will come straight back and arrest you for it.
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Seems like some kind of pseudo threat to me. What are they implying, that if some criminal uses their open access port to post goat porn to /b/ the home owner is going to be criminally liable?
It is not a threat. It is a fact. If your WLAN is left open and someone commits crimes through it, you could be really screwed. In most cases it would probably not be enough to prove that you did the crime and get you a sentence in court but it could still land you a lot of trouble. And it could be used maliciously: Let's say that a co-worker that likes neither you or your boss comes to use your WLAN to harass your boss?
There are risks in having an open WLAN. Some of them have something to do with you becoming suspected of crime, some are about how other people can commit crimes against you. It can be argued if the police is the best organization to educate about this or not but police certainly can do it and it is important thing to do.
What if you _like_ having an open access port, and don't mind if your elderly neighbors use it occasionally to check their email?
Then they say "Okay." and go to the next apartment. This isn't about them coming to force you protect your WLAN, it is about educating that "Hey, your WLAN is open. Are you aware of the risks?" Because honestly, there are a lot of WLANs that are open because their owner has forgotten to protect them, doesn't know how to do it or doesn't even know that it should be done. I would guess that these even outnumber those who leave it open intentionally.
Quite frankly it doesn't seem to be the homeowner's job to lock the world down in order to prevent crime,
Same can be said about locking your apartment's door. It isn't a homeowners job, right?
especially crime that can be remedied by pulling a plug, if it ever actually causes the homeowner to lose bandwidth.
In some cases the crime can cause a lot more. Perhaps the cops should visit you?
Come to think about it, it's not the cops job to prevent crime either.
Wait, what? Police is supposed to execute the laws which tell what people shouldn't do. It certainly isn't limited to investigating the wrongs that people have already done.
What risks are they exposing themselves to? Does Australia hold carriers responsible for content? How would a residential open WiFi differ from the free WiFi at a coffee house?
I think I would warn the cops about the "risks" of coming to my home and harassing me...
"If I had an access point that could reliably do virtual SSIDs ... I would likely set up a separate open network that used a transparent proxy to do logging so that anyone could use it."
That is an INCREDIBLY BAD IDEA. Do NOT log anything - for 2 reasons:
1) There is the possibility of logging information that could be considered "private" - in the (admittedly unlikely) event that somebody caught wind of it, you might find yourself on the receiving end of a civil suit and/or a criminal charge. The fact such a charge would likely be found unwarranted in no way mitigates the expense and hassle of dealing with it.
2) Should the police trace something to your connection, they WILL subpoena those logs. If and when they don't find what they are looking for, they will assert you have what they want and didn't surrender it, and they will tear your place apart looking for it. If you keep the logs for $TIMEPERIOD, and the event happened at $TIMEPERIOD+$POSITIVEDELTA ago, they will STILL want the logs - and the statement "I deleted them" will be portrayed at "COLLABORATION with TERRORISTS and PAEDOPHILES!" (again, it doesn't matter if they ultimately succeed in that, the cost of defending against it will be staggering).
Ultimately, the rule to follow is "Record NOTHING you don't want to see on the 6 o'clock news, or have used against you in a court of law."
Sad, but true.
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