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."

Comments

Aiding and Abetting?

[Stuart Gibson]

"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?

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Bert64]

Well, the police also lock the cars as well as putting notes on them...

A friend of mine got hit by this, he had an old car which used 2 keys - one to open the door, and one to start the engine... He had lost the door key, but still had the engine one, so he simply left the car unlocked. Being an old, rusty and totally worthless looking vehicle it never got stolen, and he never left anything in it worth stealing either. It wasn't a problem until the cops came along and locked him out of it.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[corsec67]

Also, what is to prevent a thief from dressing up in similar clothing to a cop, and then wandering around checking the door locks like these police do?

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[CarpetShark]

Being an old, rusty and totally worthless looking vehicle it never got stolen, and he never left anything in it worth stealing either. It wasn't a problem until the cops came along and locked him out of it.

...for his own safety? ;)

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[adolf]

Right. Because, every day, the news is positively littered with articles about thieves who have used an unlocked car as a ram.

As if smashing the window and opening the door the old-fashioned way were so difficult.

[/sarcasm, for the sarcasm-impaired.]

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Opportunist]

But ... but that would be like... you know, breaking into the car before stealing it!

I'm fairly sure that's in some way illegal.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[PiSkyHi]

I'm not doing a RAM raid with the side window smashed, it completely ruins the air con. effectiveness.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

I used to have a LeBaron convertible. When I first got it, I used to always lock it. One day, I discovered that criminals will happily cut into a top to unlock a door. Nothing inside the car was worth more than my deductible (plus the hassle of actually getting the top replaced), so I stopped locking it entirely. Thankfully, no pigs ever bothered to lock it for me.

On the other hand, the criminals still sometimes assumed it was locked and broke a window once to break into my unlocked car.

Locking a car only keeps non-criminals out.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

We were amazed that our old POS 20 year old Dodge Spirit was stolen from a shopping center parking lot.

It was found later parked (in two space) in the lot of some subsidized apartments.

I was expecting to find a destroyed ignition lock from someone using a screwdriver or dent puller on it.
It was unscathed.

I know the key wasn't left in it, as we still had the only key for it.
Or so we thought...

I then remembered my experience with motorcycles in the late 70's early 80's.

The 78 Yamaha 400 Special only had 5 or 6 keys made for it.

It was a trivial matter to wander around with your own key until you found a matching lock.

With the exception of the uber secure electronic keys, the same is still true to an extent.

yes and..?

[marcushnk]

so what do you think they'll say when I say I do it deliberately ?

I don't mind sharing my wifi with complete strangers. I restrict it to make sure they can't cost me too much and everything I do on it is encrypted via VPN so - meh!

Re:yes and..?

[Bert64]

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.

Re:yes and..?

[ubrgeek]

> I don't mind sharing my wifi with complete strangers

I must need coffee. I misread this as "I don't mind sharing my wife with complete strangers."

Re:yes and..?

[Pastis]

Exactly. And this false sense of security will play against you if someone uses your line inappropriately.

You: "Your honor I didn't do it"
Them: "yeah, right. Your line was secured, only you could have done it"

instead of

You: "Your honor I didn't do it. My line was open anyone could have done it."
Them: "..."

Re:yes and..?

[hairyfeet]

The problem with what you are saying is you are thinking like an IT guy, that is to say you are logically walking through the steps from point A to Z. Not your fault really, it is pretty much the way most of us do it.

The problem with using logic is that Child Porn has become the new red scare and sadly logic often don't have shit to do with whether you will be spending years in PMITA prison or not. See McMartin preschool and Little Rascals Daycare for examples.

Now see, if they had actually used logic they would have said something like "Chuck Norris killing elephants in dungeons? WTF?" but instead they bulldozed the place to the ground actually looking for the fricking dungeon! So sadly until we get rid of scaremongers like Nancy Grace and start actually using logic in the courtrooms again you would have to be batshit crazy to have an open Wifi. Because your logic doesn't really help you when everyone is treating you like a monster, the state has confiscated all your possessions and leaves you to rot in some cell.

Sad that we have fallen this far down the rabbit hole, especially when the vast majority of sexual abuse cases involves a family member or family friend and not some Internet bogeyman, but you simply can't deny reality. If the cops kick down your door and scream "Child molester!" while pointing at you nowadays you are guilty, and whether you can prove your innocence later it will often still cost you years of your life, your friends, maybe even your family. It just isn't worth it.

Re:yes and..?

[PiSkyHi]

You want mod points , I got em, I can help you out with th... oh crap, I've done it again haven't I.

Visist Every Residence

[rtb61]

I also like the idea of police officers visiting every home and place of business, more as a social visit and to establish better ties between the police and civilians. You know, get to know 'your' local police officer and, establish a more social contact with at least one officer whom you can contact in the event of need. Also it would help to remind officers of what their role really is in assisting the public to maintain a civil and orderly society.

Of course while it might work in Australia, in the US with pepper spray and taser abuse out of control and with 'public' discussions of the effectiveness, legality and use of torture it would likely have the opposite affect and drive an even greater wedge between 'law enforcement' and the public.

Re:Visist Every Residence

[Opportunist]

Dunno how many people would just jump out the window if the police knocked and said "hey, we just wanna talk with you".

I mean, it's not what you'd expect from the police. Also, the price for dope would certainly go up with the increased demand, considering how much would be flushed down the drain...

Re:Visist Every Residence

[houghi]

In Belgium when you move, the local cop will make a visit when you moved. This is to see if you live where you say you live. This can go from just knocking on your door and say hello to actually walk around and see if you live there, not just rent the place as a fake address.

A friend of mine had a nice chat and some coffee with the guy.

For me it took some three months and he really looked if I lived there, because each time he could I worked or was in another country and when I could he was not available. So he might have thought I was just renting the place with nothing in it, so e.g. debt collectors can not take away my stuff, while in reality I was living in a mansion.

In another town, my local cop was somebody who I often shared a beer with. And when I had a ticket, I just gave him the money and he would do the rest. He then would put the proof of payment in my mailbox. That way I did not need to go to the post office and buy the stamps. The system is now changed and I can pay directly via my bank.

In those days, the local cops would get the first beer free in the pub and payed for everything after that. I liked it, because I knew they knew what was going on in their neighborhood and so what if they where sometimes drunk. It showed the rest they were people as well and made the distance much smaller.

But then in Belgium drinking is not something that is frowned upon and the result is that we have the world largest brewery company.

Re:Visist Every Residence

[hab136]

I also like the idea of police officers visiting every home and place of business, more as a social visit and to establish better ties between the police and civilians.

The last time I approached a police officer in public to ask a question, he immediately said "get away from me" before I could even say anything. He was doing paperwork, FYI.

I really wish police officers would act as part the community, interacting with us, instead of acting as a separate society, above and over us.

Re:Visist Every Residence

[ColdWetDog]

The last time I approached a police officer in public to ask a question, he immediately said "get away from me" before I could even say anything.

Next time, leave the furry costume at home.

I smell something sinister

[ring-eldest]

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.

Re:I smell something sinister

[Rogerborg]

I wouldn't listen to the voices from your dental work. The police have been testing door locks since their inception. It's called crime prevention, and it's first and last in Peel's Nine Points:

The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder. [...] The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Knock, knock...

[ekran]

Oh, there are a lot of strange ways this could play out:

[ knock, knock ]
-Do you have the WLAN with the SSID MonkeyTails?
-The what, Sir?
-Wireless Network?
-Oh, for the computer Internet? No, I think ours is called captaincrook.
-Okay, that one is safe.
-Safe?
-Yeah, we are driving around checking for insecure WLANs. Do you know who MonkeyTails are?
-I think it's my neighbour.
-Ok, thank you.
[ knock, knock ]
- Hello.
- Hello, are you the owner of the WLAN MonkeyTails?
- Yes?
- It's insecure.
- I know.
- Well, you should secure it.
- No, I don't want to secure it.
- You should secure it or pedophiles could use it.
- It is an old router that doesn't support encryption.
- Well, let us know if you see any pedophiles.
- Bye.

Re:Knock, knock...

[ozbird]

Change your SSID to "DontTazeMeBro" - it's safer that way.

If I did this, I'd be arrested..

[Anonymous Coward]

So when a kid demonstrates he can access his school's network or a customer demonstrates that he can get free calls from a phone system, they will be thrown out of school for 'hacking' or arrested for 'theft of service'. But when the police do it, it's fine?

Whats happening here?

Unsecure WiFi is bad for Police, Bad for ISPs

[hughk]

It seems that two of the largest organisations hating the sharing of WiFi access are the police, who don't like the fact that unofficial open access points don't log and the ISPs who hate to think that they are losing a potential customer.

Some years back in London, a chain of winebars (C&B) offered free access for their customers with no fancy tumbling time code or anything (you, know where they print a code that has a limited validity on the till receipt).. A story appeared in one of the papers about how people were able to 'steal WiFi access' showing the 'security consultant' with a laptop in the city of London demonstrating that there was open WiFi. Yep, because they are standing directly outside that Winebar (out of shot). I have stood there myself, as the bar was too noisy, so I could use Skype over WiFi to contact my SO. This is fairly common practice now, but it disrupts the business models of people like Vodafone or commercial WiFi providers.

Re:Mac address

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious?
I suggest you read the section about mac address security here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=43

and then implement WPA (if you actually want real security)

Your current setup keeps out harmless casual users and lets in easily anyone who might want to use your connection for dodgy/illegal purposes and has the slightest clue what they are doing.

Stop being a nutjob and get a hold of yourself!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Stop being a nutjob and get a hold of yourself!

[Leebert]

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.

In the US, this is strangely true.

See Jessica Gonzalez vs. The United States (http://www.aclu.org/womensrights/violence/gonzalesvusa.html), as a good example of this.

Try suing the police for failing to show up when you call 911. This is one of the hotbutton issues for the gun lobby -- if the police have no legal obligation to actually protect you, then you need the means to do it yourself.

What "risks"???

[Jane Q. Public]

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...

A waste of Tax Money

[metrix007]

I understand why the Police are doing this, and I think it is a good move. Yes, I am an Australian, and a QLD'er.

This will let people know who truly do not, and can prevent crimes such as identity theft, downloading illegal stuff etc.

For the record, operating an insecure wifi AP is not illegal, this is just a helpful initiative.

The thing is, it is 2009. For the last 5 years at least, most AP's have security enabled by default, or at least as a mandatory step of the setup.

At the very least, there will be a warning that will be hard to miss.

For the last 5 years or so, information on this has been forthcoming to people who are not overly technical via:

        * TV shows, non technical like 60 minutes or a talk show
        * Magazines, including many of which are non tech magazines
        * Various websites, including many non tech websites, such as MSN
        * Your operating system, such as Windows, OS X or Ubuntu giving you warnings
        * User guides or manuals in very, very, simple to understand language
        * Warning stickers on the box or device
        * Probably quite a few other avenues as well

There is very little reason to not be aware of the risks of running an insecure network. All too often it is a case of stupidity, as people do this for the sake of convenience. Nothing is going to change these peoples minds.

WEP_IS_LIKE_OPEN

[ammorais]

Does the police specified that people should use WAP and Strong passwords, if they really wanted to protect their networks.

I've moved to a new apartment 3 months ago. My building is in a very dense populated area. Due to bureaucrat issues, I was over one month without an internet connection. Since I had over 25 available wireless networks on my house I gave the http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=tutorial aircrack online tutorials a shot. It was amazing how easy it is to crack a WEP connection. On average I took less than 10 minutes to crack a WEP wireless. Over 40% of people(at least around here), still use this totally insecure encryption method.
I've started to get curious about who is Using Wep. So I've made a survey with my laptop, and my phone(it has wireless), to see who is using Wep. I have a HP shop on the other side of the street, that has a big splash symbol on the window "Microsoft Certified". They have IT consultants and they are using WEP. What a joke.
My local Social Security Center is using WEP possibily exposing the entire contry database(it's just a guess. I didn't really crack it). Also WAP is not difficult to crack with weak passwords, and most of the people don't have a clue about strong passwords.
I currently have my network open, only closing when I need full bandwidth, and my SSID is something like WEP_IS_LIKE_OPEN, but in my language.
I guess worst than having an open network is to wrongly think you are secure.

Re:WEP_IS_LIKE_OPEN

[FireFury03]

I've moved to a new apartment 3 months ago. My building is in a very dense populated area. Due to bureaucrat issues, I was over one month without an internet connection. Since I had over 25 available wireless networks on my house I gave the http://www.aircrack-ng.org/doku.php?id=tutorial aircrack online tutorials a shot. It was amazing how easy it is to crack a WEP connection. On average I took less than 10 minutes to crack a WEP wireless. Over 40% of people(at least around here), still use this totally insecure encryption method.

Yep, I use WEP. I still own devices that won't do anything newer. I don't really see the insecurity as a big deal - an open AP is an advertisement that you don't mind random people using it, an AP with some kind of security (even if it's weak) tells people it isn't for public use. If you choose to break the WEP key then you're choosing to break the law.

I live in a neighbourhood where there are at least 2 other networks within range that are totally open, so I suspect people won't care about mine, but more importantly all my machines are secure and the traffic between internal machines on the network is encrypted, so it isn't really that big a deal if someone breaks into it.

If I had an access point that could reliably do virtual SSIDs (sadly the WRT54GL won't - it can do virtual SSIDs but they have to share the same address which confuses too many clients), I would likely set up a separate open network that used a transparent proxy to do logging so that anyone could use it.

I have a HP shop on the other side of the street, that has a big splash symbol on the window "Microsoft Certified". They have IT consultants and they are using WEP. What a joke.

Not really - they may require a WEP network in order to connect older devices that have no WPA/WPA2 support. Unless you've broken the law and actually cracked the key and investigated further then you have no idea what underlying security they have beneath the WEP - they might only allow ESP+AH traffic, in which case there is absolutely no security problem at all.

Also WAP is not difficult to crack with weak passwords, and most of the people don't have a clue about strong passwords.

Guess what - most people have door locks that are trivial to pick if you have the right knowledge and tools. There is only so much you can do to stop criminals. I'm sure you don't upgrade all your door locks to the latest greatest high security ones every time someone works out how to pick them, why should you expect people to replace all their wireless kit every time a compromise is found?

Re:WEP_IS_LIKE_OPEN

[wowbagger]

"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.

Find people who donate to charity too

[ConfusedVorlon]

People who donate money to charity will lose that money.
People who donate some of their bandwidth to passing surfers probably lose nothing.

Surely the police should be concentrating on the cases where there is a more significant danger of loss.

Re:You jest, but...

[HungryHobo]

Fuck off.
I've never stolen a car or broken into one but I have every fucking right to walk through a car park.

You don't like it?
Piss off and keep your precious penis substitute locked in your garage.

Re:You jest, but...

[raju1kabir]

You just plain shouldn't be hanging out in a parking lot where you don't have a car in most cases. And you DEFINITELY shouldn't be taking an inventory of what's in which car. That is, plain and simple, preparation to steal from the vehicles. Not to steal the cars, just their contents.

So now looking at things is preparation to steal them? Is looking a woman preparation to rape her? What about slowing down and looking twice? Perhaps you need a burka for your car.