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I have found a new GPS related activity. WarDriving.

 

For the uninformed if is looking for open wireless while cruising about. I recently found a Mac application called MacStumbler that allows GPS logging of coordinates so you can plot on a map or find by gps later.

 

Great for FTF cache logging :( and for grabbing data on the run or when on a trip.

 

Enough of me rambling. :(

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I have found a new GPS related activity. WarDriving.

 

For the uninformed if is looking for open wireless while cruising about. I recently found a Mac application called MacStumbler that allows GPS logging of coordinates so you can plot on a map or find by gps later.

 

Great for FTF cache logging :( and for grabbing data on the run or when on a trip.

 

Enough of me rambling. :(

Do you mean wi-fi?

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Public wireless access is very popular. There are several HOT SPOTS in my community that the general public can tap into. I had a wireless home network and I could see several neighbors home wireless connections and someone being able to ride a free wave had me concerned but not that much as long as you keep it secured; but there is always someone trying to get something for nothing. You can even buy gadgets that scan for wireless hotspots to make your searching easier. geocache log a person noted that there was a WIFI near the cache site.

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I have found a new GPS related activity. WarDriving.

As internet phenomenon goes, I would say that this one is pretty mature. The warchalking phase seemed to go away pretty quickly though.

 

Since I can normally pick up a public wifi location just by looking at the place I'm at, I just thought of wardriving as a novel play thing.

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wasn't there just an article in MSN News, like last week, about some guy being prosecuted for tapping into someone else's wireless? Like, this case will set a federal case law precedent, or something? Anyone else see that?

Yes, I heard about that one. You can bet the ISP's around the country (world?) will be lobbying for new legislation that makes tapping into unsecured hotspots a felony.

 

Who owns the bandwidth? The cable company or the guy that pays $40+ a month for it? What if he doesn't use all of it? Can he allow others to tap in? Can he charge for it?

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Just be careful about logging in onto a website that you send you password in cleartext. Any access point logging URLs could capture that. It's a bit tougher, but do-able, if you're already logged on with a cookie.

 

I'm not sure how gc.com is doing their log on scheme now. Used to, a long time ago, is was a concern, though.

 

Not that this is much of a concern, but I know is one of the fora I was in talked about some folks purposely leaving points open as bait hoping for something juicy. Just a head's up.

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Yeah, I'll admit. I do it.

 

I know where all the good locations are in the towns I drive through most often. Sooner or later people in one little town are going to wonder, "Why does that Durango drive by the Baptist Church so slowly every Tuesday?"

 

:(

 

Bret

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wasn't there just an article in MSN News, like last week, about some guy being prosecuted for tapping into someone else's wireless? Like, this case will set a federal case law precedent, or something? Anyone else see that?

Yes, I heard about that one. You can bet the ISP's around the country (world?) will be lobbying for new legislation that makes tapping into unsecured hotspots a felony.

 

Who owns the bandwidth? The cable company or the guy that pays $40+ a month for it? What if he doesn't use all of it? Can he allow others to tap in? Can he charge for it?

The "terms of use" usually exclude that you share the bandwidth with neighbors or provide "service" for third parties (like hosting email accounts etc.).

 

AFAIK the use of an unsecured wi-fi to access the internet is not illegal. It could easily happen these days that you just have a neighbor who has the same router you do, and if they are both in their "default" configuration, your notebook just accidentially connects to the other AP.

 

As soon as you have to crack something (like the easy to crack WEP or so) to gain access, you did break existing law.

 

Jan

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Just be careful about logging in onto a website that you send you password in cleartext.  Any access point logging URLs could capture that.  It's a bit tougher, but do-able, if you're already logged on with a cookie.

Yes. An open wifi connection could be a honey pot for gleaning sensitive information. If you can, use a secure connection.

Edited by Jeremy
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What most people are talking about here isn't really "wardriving". The high-throughput nature of "wardriving" is what gives it its name. The idea is to really canvas an area with some high sensitivity antennae to pick up any available signals that are publicly open.

 

Just hanging out in a parking lot after finding a geocache and praying there's a nearby open signal isn't really "wardriving".

 

Back to your regularly scheduled conversation.

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I have REALLY mixed feelings about wardriving.

 

On the one hand, I want to be all high and mighty and declare it as an ethical issue, that stealing someone else's bandwidth is wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

On the other hand... sheesh... it's like what happens if the neighbor just leaves their open garden hose running near the sidewalk. And the water is running all over the place.

Is it stealing if you pick up the hose, drink from it, then drop it again?

 

Not sure what to think.

 

Hacking into the open network and screwing with their computer, or using the service for spamming, on the other hand, stinks, and is definetly wrong... no doubt about that at least.

Edited by Sparrowhawk
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I have REALLY mixed feelings about wardriving.

Like ju66l3r said, wardriving is just picking up signals and mapping them with GPS. You're debating whether you should be able to use someone's open wifi connection.

 

Granted, the wardriving results could be used to ride the coattails of someone elses' subscription, but wardriving is just signal mapping. There isn't anything particularly sinister about it, just novel.

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Just be careful about logging in onto a website that you send you password in cleartext.  Any access point logging URLs could capture that.  It's a bit tougher, but do-able, if you're already logged on with a cookie.

Yes. An open wifi connection could be a honey pot for gleaning sensitive information. If you can, use a secure connection.

Jeremy is right about this... never thought about an open hotspot as being possibly a honeypot. Hacking the hackers. Interesting.

 

I wonder what the counter-defense would be on that one? :(

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Securing a wireless hot spot is an easy and obvious thing if an owner pays any attention to security whatsoever.

 

I, on the other hand, purposely leave mine open and have given the local geocachers, police and firefighters permission to use it at will.

 

It's a rare day (more often, night) that I don't see a cop parked behind my barn in the alley out back... I love it!

 

I run a 5-PC home network with both wired and wireless, and the wireless can only get into one machine, the wired net is seperate, so if an evil-minded person does attack he can't hurt much.

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Actually, the last event cache I logged was done from the parking lot of the restaurant where the event was held because there was a hotspot there! (I was first to log that I attended too! :()

 

This got me interested in wardriving, so for the last couple days the GPSr equipped laptop has gone with me everywhere I go, Netstumbler running all the time. Found a BUNCH of hot spots, roughly 50% using WEP, and about 25% with their SSID's set to default.

 

I'm currently working on an application to convert Netstumbler summary logs into GPX format so I can load them into GSAK and map them in StreetAtlas USA. (Yes I know GPSBabel does this but not the way I'd like it to be done)

 

4 of us cachers will soon be taking a weekend caching trip, and yes, the laptop and Netstumbler will be coming along in case we need to check up on a cache somewhere. Until the case in Florida is settled, we probably won't know for sure whether using an open, "free for all" wireless connection is illegal. I personally see nothing wrong with it; it's not illegal to receive and transmit other radio signals at will, so why should WiFi be any different? Hacking the computers on a network or trying to break WEP encrypted data is definitely a no-no, but using free internet? No.

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I have REALLY mixed feelings about wardriving.

Like ju66l3r said, wardriving is just picking up signals and mapping them with GPS. You're debating whether you should be able to use someone's open wifi connection.

 

Granted, the wardriving results could be used to ride the coattails of someone elses' subscription, but wardriving is just signal mapping. There isn't anything particularly sinister about it, just novel.

Wardriving comes from war dialing (see the movie War Games for an example). It's where you would set up your computer to dial phone numbers either in sequence or randomly and search for a carrier (a signal from another modem). Before the internet your only option was privately run BBS (Bulletin Board System) and the best ones, IMHO, didn't advertise. The only way to find them was through word of mouth or war dialing. It isn't illegal to call and connect to another computer. What is illegal is if the system has a password to limit the number or users and you tried to circumvent the system.

 

The same goes for Wardriving. There is nothing illegal with calling out, seeing who responds, and logging where this has happened. It is when you try to circumvent any system they have in place to limit who can use the wireless connection. I have a wireless router at home. I usually have my SSID set to something only a geek would understand and hopefully get a laugh at, because I know someone will be wardriving and see it. Right now it set to Free Kevin Mitnick. :(

 

Thinking out loud here. I don't recall what the max length of an SSID can be. But if I can get a set of coordinates to display it would make for a very interesting stage in a multicache. :(

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One can change the SSID of their router to anything they wanted, oh, say coordinates for example. Then someone would have to go to to your home coordinates and intercept your WiFi signal (secure or not, the SSID is still displayed) to get the coordinates or a clue to the final.

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Since I can normally pick up a public wifi location just by looking at the place I'm at, I just thought of wardriving as a novel play thing.

that is what mostly it is to me. i kinda like the ability to graphicly see where i was and where the wifi spots are.

 

using somebody elses network, that really is in all reality wrong. but you can find public spots wardiving too.

 

it is a good thing the chalking thing is over. that is just bad press waiting to happen.

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A several restaurants, gas stations and so on, are providing free wi fi access for the customers. That's a good service.

 

But my opinion is that if you buy a wi fi to your home or office - make sure how you secure it. Otherwise, someone else might use your bandwitdh.

 

Here in Sweden do the most people have flat rate on their DSL/cable. So it doesn't matter (for your wallet) if someone else is using your bandwidth.

 

A geocaching friend of ours are wardriving, and he have been finding thousands of wide open wi-fi's (!). It's scaring that people let their internet connection wide open.

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Here in Sweden do the most people have flat rate on their DSL/cable. So it doesn't matter (for your wallet) if someone else is using your bandwidth.

It's the same in the states. It is just particularly problematic for the provider who bases their costs on the general bandwidth a standard household uses. If people start sharing connections the cost will obviously go up.

 

A geocaching friend of ours are wardriving, and he have been finding thousands of wide open wi-fi's (!). It's scaring that people let their internet connection wide open.

 

I don't know. My parents leave their connection wide open. They're in the boonies, however, and don't really care if someone uses their connection.

 

The big problem is out of the box the systems have no passwords. IMO they should just create one and have instructions on how to set it up on their machine, but I bet you they just don't want the hassle of providing more customer support.

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I tried something a bit different. Soon after the wireless craze began I thought "What a way to make some money". I drove around with my trusty netstumbler equipped laptop and antenna in a business district in Durham. When I found a business with an unsecured network I would stop in and tell them for a fee I would secure it so no one else could get in. I received some thanks and a little compensation before one business owner called the police on me. I explained that I was doing it for our mutual benefit but was advised quite strongly that this could be considered an invasion of privacy or worse. Being in my late fifties and of limited means I didn't want to further test the waters and stopped. I do remember driving around my neighborhood and finding 15 wireless networks...........12 of which were unsecured......three had their names as their SSID.

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I could see why the police would be concerned about Senor Horsegeeks; he is such a suspicious, scary looking individual. :laughing:

 

I have a wireless router at home. I usually have my SSID set to something only a geek would understand and hopefully get a laugh at, because I know someone will be wardriving and see it. Right now it set to Free Kevin Mitnick

I lived in the apartment complex across the street from the one he was arrested in, and was heading out to run errands when they arrived to arrest him. You would have thought they were coming for a major drug kingpin with the amount of man and firepower that was pulling in. A SWAT team to arrest a hacker, puhleeze, it wasn't like he was playing at being the unibomber or anything like that. :laughing:

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<snip>

A geocaching friend of ours are wardriving, and he have been finding thousands of wide open wi-fi's (!). It's scaring that people let their internet connection wide open.

 

Most people don't even read the directions. They treat their wireless router like a VCR. Pull it out of the box, plug everything in, if it doesn't work return it or call the company for help.

 

Walking to my mail box I can see five other wireless routers. Only one (besides mine) has changed their SSID. I'm willing to bet the others are still using the default admin username and password and probably don't care they are.

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I tried something a bit different.  Soon after the wireless craze began I thought "What a way to make some money".  I drove around with my trusty netstumbler equipped laptop and antenna in a business district in Durham.  When I found a business with an unsecured network I would stop in and tell them for a fee I would secure it so no one else could get in.  I received some thanks and a little compensation before one business owner called the police on me.  I explained that I was doing it for our mutual benefit but was advised quite strongly that this could be considered an invasion of privacy or worse.  Being in my late fifties and of limited means I didn't want to further test the waters and stopped.  I do remember driving around my neighborhood and finding 15 wireless networks...........12 of which were unsecured......three had their names as their SSID.

Despite your intentions, I am not surprised someone called the police on you. Some people just get rattled when you walk in and solicit. :)

 

I have tried wardriving, but only if I'm not driving a vehicle. Same reason why my cell phone is almost always off. Safety issues, you know?

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Anything on the public airways that can be picked up by commercial equipment is pretty much fair game. Open wi-fi is just that- open.

If the network is password protected and you are savvy enough to hack into it- that's illegal.

Several laundromats and all of the public libraries in my area have open wi-fi.

I also subscribe to T-Mobile because most of the Starbucks have it.

Since I an internet addict I carry my notebook with me ( in the truck ) everwhere I go. :)

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I tried something a bit different.  Soon after the wireless craze began I thought "What a way to make some money".  I drove around with my trusty netstumbler equipped laptop and antenna in a business district in Durham.  When I found a business with an unsecured network I would stop in and tell them for a fee I would secure it so no one else could get in.  I received some thanks and a little compensation before one business owner called the police on me.  I explained that I was doing it for our mutual benefit but was advised quite strongly that this could be considered an invasion of privacy or worse.  Being in my late fifties and of limited means I didn't want to further test the waters and stopped.  I do remember driving around my neighborhood and finding 15 wireless networks...........12 of which were unsecured......three had their names as their SSID.

Despite your intentions, I am not surprised someone called the police on you. Some people just get rattled when you walk in and solicit. :)

 

I have tried wardriving, but only if I'm not driving a vehicle. Same reason why my cell phone is almost always off. Safety issues, you know?

I agree. I have a feeling, though, that some of the ones that refused my help went ahead and secured their wireless through other means.

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After a little research I have to correct myself (slightly).

 

Wardriving is not illegal, as it is just scanning for open networks without actually connecting to them.

 

What the OP was talking about is knowingly and willfully using an unsecured network and its internet connectivity by connecting to it. That has nothing to do with wardriving (as pointed out already) and it is illegal.

 

I still think that if someone has his AP on "default" and his WLAN client accidentially connects to the neighbors AP (also "default") without him knowing is not a felony. The key here is "without knowing". But IANAL and in a country where you have to warn people that coffee may be hot ... :)

 

Jan

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On the ibook I have istumbler, kissmac, and macstumbler. About the only time I use them is when the built in airport is having trouble. As for wardriving, I don't know. I have done it a few times when I really needed to use the internet. Most recently was in the university union when i was working on a paper. i connected to an office upstairs and it allowed me to get the information I needed.

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WiFi hotspot caches have become pretty popular around here... logging on location is fun. As far as actual wardriving I never have... I have walked around looking for open networks, but haven't mapped them. I've found Real Estate offices are some of the best places to try. As far as legality goes it would sure be hard to police every wireless router that was left open by un-informed owners... the real crime is those who would hack locked networks.

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I tried something a bit different.  Soon after the wireless craze began I thought "What a way to make some money".  I drove around with my trusty netstumbler equipped laptop and antenna in a business district in Durham.  When I found a business with an unsecured network I would stop in and tell them for a fee I would secure it so no one else could get in.  I received some thanks and a little compensation before one business owner called the police on me.

You weren't doing anything illegal, so who cares? Finding and mapping radio signals isn't any more illegal than finding and mapping benchmarks. As long as you don't attempt to get into the guys network, you're on safe ground. I've heard of others making money that way too. From my wardriving experiences, there oughta be some easy cash around my area. :blink:

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Without debating the ethics of 'wardriving', here's a link to the article where a man was arrested in Florida back in April for sitting in front of someone's house 'stealing' his wireless Internet while in a parked car.

 

Wi-Fi cloaks a new breed of intruder - St. Petersburg Times, July 4th

 

Apparently he was charged with a third-degree felony in Florida for unauthorized use of a computer or network.

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WiFi hotspot caches have become pretty popular around here... logging on location is fun. As far as actual wardriving I never have... I have walked around looking for open networks, but haven't mapped them. I've found Real Estate offices are some of the best places to try. As far as legality goes it would sure be hard to police every wireless router that was left open by un-informed owners... the real crime is those who would hack locked networks

 

here in portland there is a non-profit that provides businesses with wireless internet as long as they let the public use it for free. it seems like everywhere i go there is free wi-fi. i dont know if this is happening in other cities, but free wi-fi is becoming really popular here.

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Without debating the ethics of 'wardriving', here's a link to the article where a man was arrested in Florida back in April for sitting in front of someone's house 'stealing' his wireless Internet while in a parked car.

 

Wi-Fi cloaks a new breed of intruder - St. Petersburg Times, July 4th

 

Apparently he was charged with a third-degree felony in Florida for unauthorized use of a computer or network.

:D All of the convictions in this article are for credit card theft and such.

Did you happen to follow up to see if this guy was convicted or merely charged? :D

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Did you happen to follow up to see if this guy was convicted or merely charged?

 

The arrest appears to have happened on April 20th.

 

The latest news I was able to find was that he was scheduled to have a pretrial hearing on July 11th. Nothing further, though with the zeal that the press jumped all over this story when the arrest became common knowledge -- I'm sure it'll pop back up if and when the trial date comes around.

 

Again... not taking sides on this issue, just something to throw out there and let people be aware of.

Edited by The Cow Spots
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here in portland there is a non-profit that provides businesses with wireless internet as long as they let the public use it for free. it seems like everywhere i go there is free wi-fi. i dont know if this is happening in other cities, but free wi-fi is becoming really popular here.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago that a city is trying to provide free wifi vity-wide. I can't for the life of me remember where it was right now.

 

The drugs are good, but they make me a little fuzzy. :D

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I've done it in the past (sitting in a car on a dead end street logging a cache by the lakefront), but will not try to do it that way any more since that guy got charged with a crime for it.

 

Of course, sitting in a hotel room or lobby of an office building is different - everybody is doing it and who knows if it's a free AP or not.

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:D There are a couple of cities on the SF Bay peninsula that are talking about this.

It wouldn't surprise me if it becomes a tech race.

Can't have those geeks going outside and getting a sun tan!

Someone please edit this for me. :D

Edit: Getting wi-fi, not sitting outside in a car. :D

Edited by deimos444
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here in portland there is a non-profit that provides businesses with wireless internet as long as they let the public use it for free.  it seems like everywhere i go there is free wi-fi.  i dont know if this is happening in other cities, but free wi-fi is becoming really popular here.

I read somewhere a few weeks ago that a city is trying to provide free wifi vity-wide. I can't for the life of me remember where it was right now.

 

The drugs are good, but they make me a little fuzzy. :D

A little town near Raleigh called Apex has free wifi in its downtown area. I've taken a couple of conference calls with my ThinkPad and cell phone before

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