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SSID As the New Community Bulletin Board and Yard Sign
Hugh Pickens writes "Megan Garber writes that wireless routers have become the lawn signs of the digital age, particularly in large apartment buildings, where almost every unit has a unique Wi-Fi network that will be detected in turn by all the other unique Wi-Fi networks. SSIDs can be a cheeky, geeky way to broadcast messages to your immediate neighbors. Most of us keep it simple with '275_Elm_Street,' 'Apt23,' or 'my_network,' but some get more creative with names like: 'Apt112IHaveYourMail,' 'PrettyFlyForAWiFi,' or 'WeCanHearYouHavingSex' — a great way to freak out your annoying neighbors without hiding in their bushes or peeping in their windows late at night. Now the team at OpenSignalMaps, which maintains a database of geolocated Wi-Fi access points, analyzed the data they've collected about wireless routers to see whether Wi-Fi names are 'being used to fly political colors' and have found, globally, 1,140 results for 'Obama' and an additional six for 'Romney' — an indication not necessarily of Romney's popularity relative to the president's, but of the attention that four years as president can confer. 'There's something uniquely contemporary and incredibly old-school about that kind of broadcasting: It's messaging meant only for your immediate neighbors,' writes Garber. 'The politicized network names are like lawn signs for people who don't have lawns.'"
quite likely has more than Obama and Mittens combined as using ssid was heavily promoted by supporters as a technique to raise name awareness.
I saw "GetYourOwnDamnWifi" the other day. Ok guy, I get the point.
Is that the same Obama that is overseeing the PIPA/SOPA/CIPA/ACTA and $2 billion Utah Spying mega project? How quaint that people would use the very medium he and other politicians (bipartisan cabal) are trying to thwart to show their support...
When I first got a laptop with wifi I loaded Kismet and took the laptop with me on some errands. My favorite: HoneyPot_comeGetSnarf.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I would like to see an analysis of the names compared to the frequency of unauthorized access attempts. What names are likely to generate indifference?
There's always going to be American/United States bias in the world outside CONUS, so why even include them as part of your study? The world doesn't re-elect our president, United States citizens do. In places where I live where electoral votes count the majority, it gets comfortable to feel as though you vote doesn't count anyway.
Hate to be pessimistic, but this is pretty meaningless. Out of the millions of SSIDs in the US alone, TFA writer could only confer with 400 of them for a sample and make some half ass meaningful attempt at analysis? That's hardly anything worth blogging about. This is no more useful than it would be me using my neighbor's regular smoke breaks outside as a counter for how many people like fresh air during the sunlight hours of the day. Stupid.
Make it an open network but don't connect it to anything. Some people will spend hours trying to connect.
Works better when it is in range of busy public spaces.
Also works equally as well with "Free Porn".
... but I'm not giving up "FBI Surveillance Van".
Boobies is the more visible one (2.4 Ghz b/g/n), and everyone who comes over with a smartphone or laptop finds it amusing, the ladies moreso than the guys. I have a second vlan on it for when friends bring their children over with ipods, kindles and such; it doesn't seem right to tell a 10 year old to just grab boobies!!
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
'WeCanHearYouHavingSex' — a great way to freak out your annoying neighbors without hiding in their bushes or peeping in their windows late at night.
I was looking for a better way to freak out my neighbours than hiding in their bushes or peeping in their windows late at night.
Thanks slashdot!
Hiding your SSID isn't a security feature.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
How many times do you look at your wifi SSID list? Its been at least over a year for me cause whenever I need to connect I tell the machine to go direct to mine, which is not broadcast, and automatically connect.
I think the average person is about the same, they want their shit connected, and wont ever look at it again until something messes up. So "SSID As the New Community Bulletin Board and Yard Sign" is an interesting thought, and may be happening in some few areas, but its a big leap since chances are no one will ever read them.
"If the bulk of them are IPv4, they are going to consume a lot of the residual IPv4 addresses out there."
dear noob;
we get it you didn't get any ip addresses before 95. please stop whining. invent something better
(and i've seen better and it doesn't look like v6)
If you were to freeze the configuration of the V4 core network right now, everything would work just fine. All our stuff talks to our other stuff. We're not running out of addresses that are already deployed and running the core network, it's only the edges of the network where more addresses are needed. So use whatever you want there and as long as it rides over the stable V4 core, you're fine. Pretty much fucked though if your new protocol doesn't do that well.
Let us know how your parallel network builds out, maybe we'll use it as an I/O device one day when you're done building it.
The thing to keep in eye on this IPV6 day is not what V6 links work, but what parts of the V4 core they break. Like last year when Hurricane Electric broke the V4 link to ISC. Talk about irony-in-a-can. Talk about broken. Talk about didn't notice. Talk about H.E. got unplugged.
Please please please don't break the net again this year. Kashpureff went to jail for disruptions an order of magnitude less than this.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I set my phone up to broadcast "IRSAuditor28401938" and took a stroll around the wealthy area of town. Almost as fun as yelling "migras!" at a construction site.
Has anyone managed to send data using this technique? I realize that the data payload would be very small, but considering how fast you can switch SSIDs I imagine this should be possible. The main advantage is that you wouldn't need to actually assign an IP address to your computer in order to receive data - which should reduce the potential for malicious access. I did a quick google search and didn't find anything under "send data using ssid". Anyone seen something like this? What is the theoretical / practical data throughput? Could multiple routers be used in parallel to increase throughput? (like in the old days of bonding ISDN channels together)
They broadcast their idiocy with such gems as "WHITEPOWER" and "KILLNIGGERS". So technology is making it easier to identify the assholes in society. For a while, I powered up a spare AP connected to nothing, and broadcast "OURNEIGHBORSAREIDIOTS".
I am surprised to see that much ruckus about this "OpenSignalMaps" when Wigle http://wigle.net/ already existed for a while, and has more than 61 million networks recorded around the world. I do know they don't have the fancy Web2.0 website, but they have been doing this before that even got popular...
You do know that IP != DNS, and that most of those parked domains don't consume an IP address, right?
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"Thank you. Now imagine its 3AM, you haven't had ANY coffee yet, and they are screaming at you that parts of the network aren't working. Quick, could you look at a whole pile of IPV6 numbers in a list and spot which ones don't conform? Bet most can't because our brains just don't process hexadecimal nearly as well as it does numbers. But if they gave you that same list in IPV4 octets you'd spot the 194. numbers in less than 3 seconds."
You do know you don't have to use "random" ipv6 addresses? Use usefull patterns/prefixes if you are afraid you'll miss the tree your are looking for in your forest. Or write a script to convert hex to octets if that helps you. But be sure to use a fixed font, that helps a lot with hex.
I am a fan of using "NeverNeverLAN"
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The real problem with this survey is that they limited it to America.
Obama is nothing and Romney is huge in Amercia.
http://gawker.com/5914880/chinese-owner-of-amerciacom-says-romney-typo-is-helping-him-fund-his-sons-college-education