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Italy Quake Rescuers Ask Locals To Unlock Their Wi-Fi (bbc.com)
Rescue teams searching for earthquake survivors in central Italy have asked locals to unlock their Wifi passwords. The Italian Red Cross says residents' home networks can assist with communications during the search for survivors, reports BBC. From the report: On Wednesday a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck central Italy and killed more than 240 people. More than 4,300 rescuers are looking for survivors believed to still be trapped in the rubble. On Twitter, the Italian Red Cross posted a step-by-step guide which explains how local residents can switch off their Wifi network encryption. Similar requests have been made by the National Geological Association and Lazio Region. A security expert has warned that removing encryption from a home Wifi network carries its own risks, but added that those concerns are trivial in the context of the rescue operation.
This sort of reckless openness in communications sends the message that so called 'disasters' are a free-for-all for pirates, child pornographers, and terrorists.
Any right-thinking citizen would agree that a few unimportant people staying buried in rubble is a small price to pay to secure the internet against intellectual property theft and anonymous communication by evildoers.
And yet if something illegal happens on the WiFi, will the govt ignore it?
This is a horrible idea, sorry. The govt should bring in WiFi hotspots, and not put locals at risk.
All you'd have to do is prove that any illegal activity that crossed/originated from your network happened during the dates of the rescue and you've got the best excuse in the world to be let off the hook.
> A security expert has warned that removing encryption from a home Wifi network carries its own risks
What a tool.
might as well
I'd do it, but then I'd advise people who want to assist in such a way to unplug all their computers, including turning off wifi on smartphones etc., and disconnecting NAS storage in the forum of a USB drive attached to a router.
Although there's a concern for the security of the router itself.
Create a "guest access" account on the router and allow that? Absolutely! No problem with that at all, especially since I can log who connects.
Remove all security and just turn my connection (and all liability in a nation not known for being especially scrupulous with it's accusations of wrong-doing) over to the whims of chaos?
No.
Sorry, but better to not expose myself to that kind of risk, than have to fight my way out of kangaroo court.
[End Of Line]
We have the same communications failure backdrop at virtually every natural disaster.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
But then, I've got a router that lets me set up guest access to the internet without providing access to my internal network.
#DeleteChrome
vai dar a porra do teu cuzinho que daí passa a vontade de ficar mandando minha mãe ficar me dizendo que tu chora como uma vagabunda.
for not predicting a major earthquake years ago?
Stop being Internet dweebs and get some radios you powder puffs.
Do the rescue teams not have radios? Or did some idiot think it'd be a great idea to handle relief efforts via a facebook page?!
"So Jenson - How are we going to coordinate relief efforts with the power of the internet!"
"Well during a disaster sir, the rescue teams will all be able to mark and track the areas they searched by clicking on this map on their smartphones! Also if they find somebody they can update the status and we can direct crews out there!"
"Brilliant Jenson! Brilliant! But what if the power goes out and they can't reach the internet?"
"Oh the internet never goes down sir... It's in the cloud!"
Those good old days of cyberanarchistic freedom, gone forever now, I guess, but still fondly remembered.
WiFi, mainly for communication, is like any other resource in a disaster. If less of a necessity than the obvious ones like water, food, assistance, transport, shelter, medical, power, communication. Sharing those with others in need also carries a risk. Be aware of it and take appropriate steps to protect yourself while still helping others.
The linked to article provides 0 information as to what possible benefit this could have but suggests its vastly more important than worrying about your security...say what?
So what possible benefit could having these effectively wide open wifi-hotspots have that emergency team 'wireless hotspots' wouldn't? And if the Italian government/Red Cross etc. don't have enough of those send a plea (demand?) to the local telecommunications companies to get out & deploy them ASAP. If they are trying to use the 'emergency' nature of the disaster as an excuse to get people to help them in what amounts to a very stupid way, its not at all a stretch to suggest the Italian government can just demand the telecom companies supply time & materials to deploy an emergency network & even ask for technically competent volunteers to help.
Think about it. How hard would it really be to send out a tweet saying they are drop shipping 1000's of preconfigured wireless hotspots (with activated SIMs) all over the region but they need volunteers to grab them & deploy them throughout the area? (plugging them in to power maybe at worst, finding working power outlets would likely be the hardest part)....o what's that? people might steal them and then use them for criminal activities? O, so you won't trust the people but you expect the people to trust you? Nice position to take on that....
This is an entirely reckless request again supported by a 'think of the children' type of argument.
Is the Red Cross going to tell everyone the step-by-step guide for how to secure their network again AND disinfect their home network after the inevitable malware, virus & other evil software gets installed by 'black hats' (and government agents alike)? We of course know the answer to that is 'no'...so thanks for nothing Red Cross.
It would be nice if home and small business WiFi could supplement the traditional role of ham radio in disasters. Does a safe disaster protocol exist that can be deployed in routers worldwide for emergency public use of nodes while keeping the owner safe from cyberattack? Routers might be equipped with physical switches that place them into Public Communications mode when needed, perhaps with entry of a PIN for security.
Now consider that many disasters will involve loss of at least local power. Is there an accompanying safe way of allowing public use of tethered cellphones as WiFi nodes? One charged tethered phone could relay communications for a field infirmary for hours even in a 'dark' city.
The nanny-state would tend to mandate the WiFi stay locked for security reasons, or at least make sure people unlocking the WiFi were properly punished later by whatever means the state has (which are many).
In this actual case, it's private citizens calling for other private citizens for devices to be unlocked...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let's give the President a break, shall we. The reason he didn't visit Louisiana is simple: the golf courses are underwater.
Well, not all of them, but I'm sadly sure that some criminals will be willing to take advantage of the situation. Of course the most serious threat is that the extremely black-hat hackers will exploit the unlocked WiFi networks to pwn routers and linked computers for later abuse. In accord with Dan Ariely's research, the criminals will think they are being relatively nice guys by saving their major depredations until after the immediate emergency has been addressed.
https://ello.co/shanen0/post/f... is a quasi-review of one of his books about dishonesty, even including an honest email exchange...
However, I think it would be much better if we did it the other way around. Rather than maximizing the profits of the big Internet companies, we should always be configured to run as much of the infrastructure as possible on our own systems. In other words, WiFi routers would normally be configured for safe sharing, and handling emergencies would just be a natural extension of wireless communications that the big Internet companies are not controlling and profiting from.
Punchline is that profit is not the primary driver of the bad design. It's all about controlling our communications. I think the primary driver for centralized control of the Internet is the governments. They WANT the rules and laws to work that way. If things got out of control, if the peasants were actually in charge of the Internet, how would they control the peasants? Real democracy scares them more than anything.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I mean seriously? Why wouldn't you? I've read a heap of the comments about how insane you would have to be and all the legal risk you would be at but we're not talking about leaving it permanently unsecured, we are talking about a short period of time during a national emergency where people around you are buried under collapsed buildings!!
Christ I get it, you have you NAS full of your super sensitive material, well turn the fucking thing off then. This is slashdot ffs, are you seriously telling me that you don't have the capability to turn off a computer you don't want someone to access?
People are dying, infrastructure has been damaged. Who knows what state their mobile network is in, perhaps it's not possible to bring in wifi hotspots.
The chances that if all people unsecure their wifis that your connection will even get used is pretty small. The chances yours gets used by a malicious actor is vanishingly small. The chances that your open wifi saves a life is also tiny, however it might. So I just don't get why someone wouldn't be willing to take on a little, essentially insignificant, risk if it might save someone.
If an earthquake or similar disaster happens near me, not only would I happily open my network, but I would be out there trying to physically help people, so I could just turn everything off for a couple of days as I'm not using it. Maybe I'm the strange one.
Firstly, it's off topic. Secondly, nope, they weren't charged for "not predicting an earthquake", despite what you might have read on some trashy tabloid. They were charged for entirely disregarding - not to say ridiculing - warnings coming from another scientist who had said that an earthquake near the city of L'Aquila was highly likely to happen soon, because high radon gas emissions from the ground had been detected. And the earthquake actually happened in the area and time frame he had indicated. I don't think they should be jailed (I think they have been acquitted), but surely laid off.
the quake was on wednesday and you think that there is a smartphone battery that still isn't dead? really?
"Rescue teams searching for earthquake survivors in central Italy"
Are you insane? Or just really, really, really stupid?
Don't answer, because I will not be reading responses from someone so clearly an idiot - and by now someone who has shown they work very, very hard at staying an idiot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, they got charged for untruthful statements.
Years ago, amateur radio (ham) operators would provide emergency commications where infrastructure was damaged. I wonder where all of the Italian hams are (jokes aside)?
Could it be that there aren't as many anymore because everyone just owns a cell phone and aren't interested in communications that aren't so dependent on commercial interests that don't plan for disasters since it takes away from the bottom line?
We reap what we sow..
Harshness doesn't make it not true.
Setup an unsecured / isolated guest access with ssid to indicate its for emergency use then kill it once most services are restored. At least your nkt putting your home net as low hanging fruit..(not aware of exploits ato break over guest isolation)
We are not even 3 full decades into the internet being widely available and rescue groups have already lost basic skills. This has got to be a fucking joke.
Use radios you fucking morons. The internet shouldn't be used for an emergency like this. The internet ultimately relies on physical cables buried underground, just like gas and electrical lines and is thus subject to down down and not be functional in a major catastrophe like this. Apparently the Red Cross in Italy is now being ran by millennials though...
Some jurisdictions have data caps which can be all used up
What untruthful statements? They were convicted because witch trials are still a real thing in Italy, just like the Amanda Knox trial (literally a witch trial as far as the prosecution was concerned, although the prosecutor had at least the minimals smarts to stop claiming that it was a satanic ritual murder in public before the actual trial).
...and still counting.
If anyone cares. :)
If you need access to everyone's internet devices in a rescue operation you are doing it wrong. I didn't jump to the nefarious extreme you did to come to a conclusion, I base my position on real life military rescue work.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Sorry, but if you are digging people out of rubble you don't do it with Wifi. The whole "we want wifi" is confusing to me, who has been part of numerous rescue operations before Wifi was an option. Bases? Sure! Maps? Sure! Tools to do the job? Sure! Communication? Sure! That last part is not WIFI, it's the frigging Government operated Telecoms in every country. WIFI? Maybe for movies, music and personal time after doing work. I'm okay with that, but that should not be done at the expense of locals without any concern for legal aspects which leave locals on the hook for other people's actions. That should be part of the bases, which are setup by larger orgs with legal teams to handle the bullshit that the BSA may decide to direct at a local for a song a rescuer listened to.
You seem to think that the only problem is with the locals and rescuers, and not the thousands of people working in the bureaucracies surrounding those people.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Sorry, but no. It's not me being insensitive, it's authorities having become so tyrannical that some years ago they made having an open wifi spot a crime, "helping terrorists" you know. I'm not putting myself or my family in legal harm's way because of some warm fuzzy feelings the current government wants. You made the rules, you enforced them, now watch me respect them.
The scientists were not convicted. And you are encouraged to keep all your overweight assassins at home, including those who manage to be acquitted because, all of a sudden, a court refuses to accept DNA as evidence, probably as a result of pressure from the US state department (i.e., mrs. Clinton at the time), as in the case regarding the serial slanderer Amanda Knox:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/amand...
Hi, Italian Anonymous Coward here, as well as being an EMT volunteer: the request to open WIFI were available, is acutally a good measure.
For many reasons, let me list you some.
Mobile towers got damaged by the quake, so mobile access is not guaranteed everywhere. It is not by the way a dense populated area, so there aren't so many towers available for the very beginning.
Since cell-phone are ubiquitous nowadays, allowing even the WIFI channel to have people trapped under the rubble report their presence could be of some help.
O'course in such situation battery life would be shortened a lot, but is still an extra chance.
Even more: local rescue operators could be able to use Internet based tools to communicate or whatelse even on low 3G/4G mobile connections or radio.
On normal events and manifestation with a lot of people, local urgency/emergency teams they use Internet based tools to reach their HQ.
Reverting to SAT links if normal mobile link is not available. If even SAT link, they revert to just voice radio, by the way.
By the way, even unharmed residents who cannot get back home and access normal phone, could somehow get benefit from the open wifi and being able to communicate with their relatives/family/loved ones.
Please note that when operating in a emergency scenario, allowing communication in any way is highest priority.
A good IT operator, when opening his/her WIFI could/should put in place security measures o'course, but under such emergency, they aren't the top priority.
I am quite sure that people who could get advantage of such open wifi, if they are at access point reach, they're helping not wasting time trying to send spam, hack into remote networks or trying to access other's devices.
ditto plus.
I do have to agree with this. I had actually let my license lapse and just recently renewed for this reason. In the recent Louisiana floods, there was a call for amateur radio ops to help out with comms b/c basic infrastructure had been literally washed away or overloaded. With the fit hits the shan, hams are more than willing to step up to the task.
Some people are like Slinkies - Not good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you push 'em down the stairs.
I was in Italy a few years ago, in a town in the south part of the main land, and helped a friend set up their national-telecom-provided Wifi router (which was surprisingly not difficult, even with not knowing the language, and no English-language option).
What was surprising was that there was not only no option to set the access point open, there wasn't even a way of specifying a passphrase -- only a cryptic one chosen by the router could be used. Which explained why I never saw an open access point the entire time that I was in the country...
IMHO, in the ideal situation, every WiFi access point should include by default a second SSID mapped to a VLAN that can allow complete traffic isolation between the personal network and the guest network. The guest network should be IEEE 802.11s-enabled to allow roaming and mesh networking, and 802.11u for interworking and authentication. In that way, emergency responders can have access to a network while protecting individual's privacy. Even nicer would be an emergency responder's network only available to them with CJDNS over those mesh networks. In that way, members can trust they are who they say the are, and all communication is encrypted.
Digging through rubble can not effectively be performed without both hands operating tools. When WiFi can let people dig faster I'll might reconsider your perspective. That is the smallest of concerns however, and again your lack of knowledge with rescues is obvious..
What I believe you were dickishly attempting to claim that certain non-operational issues, such as rescuer down time, can benefit from local's giving them access to their services. While that position has some merit one must consider that most services have data caps, usage fees, and overage fees. Additionally, rescuers may not understand local laws and customs which places liabilities on local users. In other words, you are effectively saddling an already devastated area with additional fees, while attempting to claim it's humanitarian.
When agencies providing services can both compensate locals for fees and cover their legal fees for any wrong doing by rescuers we can try to saddle the locals with the burden of providing communications. That time is not here, not mentioned, and completely ignored by people who lack perspective (like you).
Furthermore, logistics does not require local WiFi access for rescue operations. Not now, and not in the near future. In fact access of this type could hinder operations due to distractions. As with previous, this should be obvious to anyone with perspective. You want rescuers to be entertained at the local populaces expense. Typical, shallow, egocentric bullshit..
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Your cell signal is bad so you want the replace it with unreliable WiFi which may not even exist in the areas you are running rescue operations? Do you really believe that? How about FOBs with local broadcast abilities like we have used for the last, oh I don't know.. 60 years plus? Isn't that a more sensible solution which every reputable organization I'm aware of has?
That claim about "needing" it for communication is bullshit. Stuff some in your nose and take a good long whiff, it's bullshit.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
What radio?
Random person on the street would not have a radio, but the chances of them having a wifi device is more then zero.
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