Wardriving

What is 'wardriving'?

• Wardriving is the gathering of statistics about wireless networks in a given area by listening for their publicly available broadcast beacons. Wireless access points (APs) announce their presence at set intervals (usually 100 milliseconds) by broadcasting a packet containing their service set identifier (SSID) and several other data items. A stumbling utility running on a portable computer of some sort (a laptop or PDA) listens for these broadcasts and records the data that the AP makes publicly available.

Why 'war'?

• This is kind of an unfortunate prefix, in these rather twitchy times. Wardriving has nothing whatsoever to do with war. The term is the offspring of the term wardialing, which was the (now mostly extinct) practice of dialing random phone numbers via computer to see if you could find an answer modem. Wardialing, in turn, came out of the 1983 cult movie War Games, in which a teenager got himself (and the rest of the world) into serious trouble by creating an autodialer that eventually found its way into a DOD computer programmed to wage nuclear war. The kid was looking for computers supporting online games and had no strong intent to "break into" anything—the problems that developed lay with an essentially undefended military computer.

Is it legal?

• The legality of wardriving hasn't been tested, but few people think that wardriving itself is illegal. What is certainly illegal is connecting to and using networks without the network owner's permission (which is what most people call "breaking into a network") and wardriving has taken some hits in the press because network crackers will sometimes use wardriving tools to locate networks to break into. It's the ancient conundrum of the uses to which tools are put: A crowbar is handy for taking apart pallets for use as firewood, but a crowbar can also be used to break into buildings. Should crowbars then be illegal? Hardly. The gotcha is that this is a very new phenomenon, and the law hasn't entirely caught up with networking as a whole, much less the peripheral issues that emerge with regularity from the seething cauldron of technology innovation.
   
  To keep wardriving legal, it's important to 1) obey the law as it exists today, and 2) do our best to encourage journalists to draw the distinction between wardriving tools and their abuse by crackers. Public perception is extremely important. If you connect to other people's networks illegally, it's your butt in a sling and nobody else's, but if you brag about it and the press picks it up, you hurt us all.

here's a basic code of ethics:

Don't look.

Don't touch.

Don't play through.

• In other words, 1) don't examine the contents of a network; 2) don't add, delete, or change anything on the network, and 3) don't even use the network's Internet connection for Web surfing, email, chat, FTP, or anything else. Somebody else paid for the bandwidth, and if you don't have permission to use it, you're stealing it. Basically, unless you have permission, don't connect. Consider it a matter of personal honor, even when it's unlikely that you'll be caught. (If you get too used to feeling that you won't get caught, sooner or later you will get caught!)

so anyone have any thoughts on this practice?

do you take steps to protect your wireless network?

would you connect to the starbucks across the street if you could?

let's discuss.

seems like the basic ethics are like traffic lights many fools see them as suggestions to be ignored.

I hit starbucks today and hopped on the T-moblie network for free. I havent done it before so for a second i was a super genius unitl i decided that the network wasnt dsigned to keep Macs out.

one of my boys connections went through my neighborhood wardriving to see if he could set me up with option #3.

personally, I'd think you'd have to be stupid not to protect it.

I'm leaning towards the attitude that 'if you dont protect it, it deserves to be acessed'.

However snooping though personal files or causing damage isn't good form.

Dont blame the oppourtunist burglar who walked in you open front door.

i'm part of that group, key. i wouldn't go out of my way to get free internet access, but if all i have to do is turn on my computer, i'll take it. thats an extra $40 a month i can blow on hookers and booze.

Originally posted by <KEY3>@Jan 12 2005, 07:13 PM

Dont blame the oppourtunist burglar who walked in you open front door.

Quoted post

thats fucked up logic...now granted people need to be aware and "lock" their doors, not walk down dark alleys etc etc, but in no way in a society such as ours does an unlocked door give anyone any sort of right to take or invade someones property...

its borderline to the logic that people sometimes use to victimize the victim of say a rape, by saying she deserved it...

yes mental... I dont agree with the 'blame the victim' ideal either,

but when it comes to this subject, not rape or murder, it's your own

fault if you dont protect your self. Like useing '1234' as your bank

PIN... it's just not smart to leave things unprotected.

and effyou..... so after about half a year you have enough to get drunk with a pretty girl?

It is so goddamn easy to set up a quick password for your wireless network that I have no sympathy for those who are broadcasting free internet to their neighborhoods.

it seems as though it would be difficult to trace a computer who illegaly accessed one of these unsecured networks, is it possible, what would be needed to trace a computer who broke into a wi-fi network?

ha....you said it not me zesto....slice that white bread how you see fit....

ps....im glad i have dial up with you bastards lurking...

zesto said nothing......

but I hear that mofluck is online for free right now!!!!

haha... there's 6 open networks to pick from right here.... in my... errr.... his room [no deto]

Philidelphia soon to have free wi-fi for all!

New wi-fi protocol 802.16 to provide service for a 30 mi radius from towers!

Oh and protect ya neck....

i have unsecured wifi right now...does that mean someone can sit outside my house and somehow pull files off my computer? if so, how? and how do i set up a password or something so you can't just connect to my shit?

i dont really give a shit if someone jacks my bandwidth, but obviously i dont want them fucking with my files.

I'm pretty sure that all wireless hubs have a small scale linux OS

running that serves as a firewall and some kind of protection.

I dont think you should worry (seeking) about someone grabbing

your shit. As long as you need a password to log on to your computer,

then you've built enough safety to keep the curious out. The malicious

will probably get in no matter what you do.

as far as someone just using the bandwidth.... is not really an issue.

The speeds you get via wireless aren't going to cap your upload limits.

go for it. i hear canucks get to have dsl lite that's wayyyyy faster than dsl here. fcc sucks here.

wardriving means extra cash for you.

well sortof.

I'm not going to pay to be online at home. fuck that.

I'd rather pay the money to go shoot a game of pool

or something that doesnt imply sitting on my ass.

but hey.... for a one time fee of $50 to get on the wifi.... You cant lose.

^ thats exactly why I'm not online at home.

nothing productive would get done.

yo aint nothing wrong with wardriving and aint nothing wrong with using the networks from time to time, shit i steal bandwith all the time i dont steal allot of bandwith just enough to surf the web or log onto my shell account or some shit like that, i used to leave my network unsecure for people like me

I've been looking around and it seems that a lot of people

are willingly sharing their connection with others. I think I would too.

If you're not paying per upload and you arent letting some pederast share his shit,

then I dont really see the harm in letting some people on your network.

Besides.... if the RIAA comes after you and you can prove that other people were on you lines, can they still sue you if you've gotten rid of the evidence?

Key3x0r: can your computer be traced?

I have no idea?

by that very fact, I'd assume yes.

Is my real name in the registry? nope.

will I ever do online banking over ANY unsecured network?

Not a chance. Will I try to keep this going as long as possible.... hell yes!

Well I guess I'm getting out of the army next week so I'm going to need some free wi fi to ease the old 12 oz addiction seeing as how I don't even know where the hell I'm going to live.

HAHAHAHAHAH'

hahahahahaha

hahahahahaha

get this.....

there's a bar/pool hall down the street from me

and I've been going there for years. Long story short:

A bunch of my friends used to work there and hook up their friends.

Now it's all run by this girl who backstabbed / slept her way to the top.

Well....... after paying thousands (no joke) over the years.....

I've foundthat they leave their netowrk wide open.

Remember that scene where Ferris Bueler changed his grade from a C to an A?

I wonder if my bar tab can shrink right before their eyes?

:toothache:

I think I'm the first fool to use that smilie... ever.

i got on wifi recently. using my own network, though.

one thing that's good/bad. i'm the only wifi network in the hood.

the bad thing is also stated in the previous sentence.

i'm on 802.11G. dope stuff. 54mbps.

network stumbler is awesome.

I read somewhere that WEP can be hacked in 3 minutes

by someone who knows what they are doing. Something about

using one system to ping and another one to pick up dropped

packets. It all sounds very confusing, but the moral is there:

if you want you computer to be 100% secure, keep it offline.

i did some wardriving when i was in montana in order to check my email. Obviously i'm against people fucking with my files, and i'm smart enough to make my wireless secure so not everyone can use my bandwidth, but there are people out there who could still get into it. I really don't worry about it. The people who can do that are the type of people who can do whatever the hell they want regardless of what security i have.

key 3 doesn't lie, i just read a paper about wep and it's hackability. choose a nice long password....

WEP is some of the weakest encryption out there. If you are that paranoid, use blowfish or some shit.

fuck wep it's all about wpa2