Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Seattle PD Mum On Tracking By Its New Wi-Fi Mesh Network

Posted by timothy on from the progressive-city dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Stranger reports that Seattle's police department has installed a Wi-Fi mesh network paid for by the Department of Homeland Security. FTA: 'The SPD declined to answer more than a dozen questions from The Stranger, including whether the network is operational, who has access to its data, what it might be used for, and whether the SPD has used it (or intends to use it) to geo-locate people's devices via their MAC addresses or other identifiers.'"

8 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. changing it is a good idea regardless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    geo-locate people's devices via their MAC addresses

    If you use public wireless at all, changing your MAC is just wise, for privacy reasons.

    # ifconfig eth0 hw ether

    1. Re:changing it is a good idea regardless by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No doubt there is a provision buried in Law somewhere that says that any attempt to subvert the surveillance system, obscure your identity, or obscure your location, shall constitution obstruction of police powers and land you in jail.

    2. Re:changing it is a good idea regardless by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Funny

      No doubt there is a provision buried in Law somewhere that says that any attempt to subvert the surveillance system, obscure your identity, or obscure your location, shall constitution obstruction of police powers and land you in jail.

      When it is criminal to use airplane mode, only criminals will have airplane mode.

    3. Re:changing it is a good idea regardless by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is insightful? Really?

      The cops aren't setting this up for Joe citizen to use, it's for their use in emergencies. Maybe they can track you, maybe they can't, but we have no idea if they even have any interest in doing that. I live in Seattle and The Stranger is a fun alternative weekly, but they also enjoy stirring the pot and it's probably not a good idea to take their suppositions as fact.

      Only on Slashdot can you get the same people freaking out because the police set up a Wi-Fi network that may know where you are even though they may have no intention of ever doing that ... who will turn around and cheer Google for putting up municipal Wi-Fi that is definitely being used to track you and your location, browsing, mail, search and personal buying habits and send you ads. Why is the police Wi-Fi network the one that people are worried about?

      The difference is that Google can't put me in jail on trumped up charges, if they don't like what I say where the police can. All Google wants to do is show me easily blocked ads. Giving the cops recored of my location at all times, which they could easily forge to make it look like you were at a crime or anywhere incriminating is not a good idea.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    4. Re:changing it is a good idea regardless by arisvega · · Score: 4, Funny

      You "fixed" it, but not the part where he was changing the wired MAC address to prevent wireles tracking.

      Try wlan0.

      Utter nonsense- carrying around miles of ethernet cable is the only way to be safe.

      --
      The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
  2. Looks like Aruba mesh network with Airwave by kaptink · · Score: 4, Informative

    This just looks likely to be an out of the box Aruba Airwave (tracking) install on an Aruba MSR4000 mesh network. So just turn your wifi off when your not using it?

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
  3. How long before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How long before we see something like this:

    Cops show up at "suspects" work or home

    Cops: "Sir, your MAC address was at the scene of the crime/terrorist attack yesterday. How do you explain that."

    Suspect: "I have no idea."

    Cops: "Sir, you need to come with us."

    Neighbors or work associates: "WTF?! We were right next to the guy and he's a TERRORIST!"

    And in the meantime, the criminals will just leave their electronic devices at home. - at least the smart ones. The terrorists will have none.

    Badge + gun == grunt.

    All this sophisticated tracking technology will only further destroy our freedoms.

  4. Re:Meaning by ampmouse · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Eh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. This was the front page story of The Stranger print edition, which is a fairly popular weekly newspaper in Seattle. I had no connection with The Stranger story, but I'm one of the obscure bloggers investigating the wireless mesh. I made my first request to the Seattle Police Department in February 2013. Yes, a full 10 months ago. I didn't ask them to answer any questions, I just asked for the records. I made the following request:

    Pursuant to RCW Ch. 42.56 (Public Records Act), I hereby request the following records: The maps, purchase orders, maintenance contracts, technical specifications, usage policies, access procedures, data retention policies, installation instructions, device configurations, interconnect details, and other public records requests for the wireless mesh network installed in the second half of 2012.

    Obviously these are all things they should have right? I've been fighting with the police department for months, and the best I've gotten is a picture of a crumpled up printout of a low resolution map of the system. You'd think there would be source files for that picture right?

    There is clearly a coverup going on here, but the police aren't going to talk about it. So I went to the IT and Finance people. Well, I got back quite a few interesting records from them! For example, this project included $9795.19 RADIUS server. On what planet does a RADIUS server cost that much? It turns out to be a $1000 dell server running FreeRADIUS. Even that is overkill.

    Another interesting feature, is the camera aspect you brought up. There are already 36 high-res pan tilt zoom cameras on this network, and there is enough bandwidth for them to add over 1600 more. In addition, they significantly overpaid for the cameras by not properly following their own bidding process rules.

    There are real problems with this project and most of them are not related to surveillance. Even when it is just a small blogger investigating, it is the Seattle Police Department's responsibility under Washington state law to turn over copies of records requested. Hopefully The Stranger article will bring enough attention to this problem to encourage the Police department to do the right thing, obey the law, and release the records to anyone who asks for them.