Car 802.11b Where Are You?
from the on-the-WiFi-patrol dept
This one seems to be an offshoot of the typical local open WiFi fear mongering — which often does include quotes from police officers. In Douglas County, Colorado, the Sheriff’s department is now starting up the open WiFi patrol, where police cars will be equipped to war drive, and note down open WiFi access points, with the plan of alerting owners (if they can be found) that they should lock down their WiFi. What’s not clear, however, is what they’ll do if someone tells them that they left the network open on purpose.
Comments on “Car 802.11b Where Are You?”
Wtf?
If I lived there I would really be pissed. I have yet to understand how having open WiFi poses a threat to anyone. If anyone is going to be war driving I would think it would be the internet providers, since it’s your agreement with them that is being broken by leaving your WiFi unsecured.
Re: Wtf?
I would agree with you about the ISP’s being the ones to patrol.
as far as the threat, well it is not a threat to anyone person but, if someone makes threats from a hijcaked access, well it is the persons fault that allowed that to happen.
Re: Re: Wtf?
I can go sit in my local Denny’s or coffee shop or in the parking lot of the Day’s Inn Hotel and have free WiFi. Which I can then use to do bad things on the internet. So, I don’t see how my open WiFi is any different (other then my ISP agreement) then business with open networks.
wow
all i have to say is wow, as if cops have nothing better to do, now cops are war drivers, lol.
Amazing what people do eh :)
Just amazing.
Public Servants are serving the public
If I leave my WiFi unsecured, it poses a threat to me. If I’m a noob that doesn’t know any better, I’d much rather have someone tell me that I could get into trouble like this before the fact. They are telling you that you could run into trouble, not telling you to lock it.
Second, wardriving can be done as part of a normal patrol. Give me a couple hours, I might be able to jury-rig a device that listens for unsecured WiFi, and when it finds one, it beeps or something. The police mark down where they are with a notepad, and mention it to the person later. Hell, you could probably rig a GPS in there too, so that it marks WiFi hotspots as you’re out patrolling, and you can check it when you get back to the station.
Way to spin things, Mike. Police are doing the electronic equivalent of saying “Ma’am, are you aware that your garage door is open? We wouldn’t want things to get stolen.” and you turn it into ‘Big Brother.’
Re: Public Servants are serving the public
Heh. Why not, Mike turns most things into Big Brother news, it is what this site does, it is why I and many others read it.
I guess I can see both sides. There is another aspect to this as well, knowing where all your open WiFi spots in town are could help find criminals who do use them to commit crime.
Re: Re: Public Servants are serving the public
If you poo poo big brother you muct not go out of yoru house too often…
They got camps for peopel like you!
Indiana or Utah–you pick!
MORON!
that is to say anyone who can really object to big brother being real
hasn’t done a head count lately !
Re: Public Servants are serving the public
Jury-rig a device? Integrate GPS? That would be impossible…
Oh… wait… maybe it’s already been done by several software packages for various operating systems…
Re: Public Servants are serving the public
OK, I’ll play feed the turf troll.
How much of a threat? In what way? To whom (your industry)? If in YOUR case in would be a considerable threat then you shouldn’t leave YOURS open. Maybe you should never leave home either.
If you don’t know what you are doing, then maybe you should hire someone who does. Or bother to learn. Don’t beg the police to be everyone’s net nanny or to spread your FUD for you.
They are intimidating people who run open WiFi access points. The police hate open WiFi because it can hamper surveilence. The Wireless ISP industry hates it because they see it as a threat to their business models.
I have never, ever heard of the police going around telling people to close their garage doors. Maybe they do in some places, but I don’t think is very common. My house doesn’t even have a garage door, yet the police have never come around telling me to install one. And my nearest neighbors don’t even have a garage. Gee, maybe we an anti-auto-theft law making it illegal to park any auto outside of a “secured” garage and put the police on patrol to enforce it.
Re: Re: Public Servants are serving the public
They are intimidating people who run open WiFi access points. The police hate open WiFi because it can hamper surveilence. The Wireless ISP industry hates it because they see it as a threat to their business models.
*Disclaimer* I own a Wireless ISP.
The WISP industry, and ISP industry, in general, doesn’t hate open wifi because it is a business threat, they dislike it because connection sharing is a violation of the AUP the customer agreed to when gettting service.
Re: Re: Re: Public Servants are serving the public
If it isn’t a threat, then why is it prohibited in your AUP? I smell doublespeak.
Re: Re: Re:2 Public Servants are serving the pu
I suppose it is a threat just like sharing your cable with your neighbor is a threat to the cable company. All it will end up doing is hurting the honest consumer by causing them to pay higher prices for service.
If an ISP pays $500/meg for it’s bandwidth how do you suppose they can afford to sell it to their customers for $20/meg?
Re: Re: Re:3 Public Servants are serving th
My ISP has no such restriction.
I have 2 wifi access points, one fully locked down & connected to my inner network, the other outside MY network and completely open & avalable. I _am_ running some dynamic bandwidth shaping to insure I get what I need but all the excess is avalable to my entire neighborhood.
I would suggest that any ISP that does is the very same kind that will oversell thier bandwidth and then punish thier customers for actually having the GALL to actually use all the bandwidth they pay for…
The obvious answer is to get a decent ISP and say “Thank you Officer, Feel free to check your Email sitting on my block, it makes me feel safer having you around”
Re: Re: Re:3 Public Servants are serving th
No, it isn’t. Who, other than you, said anything about sharing cable? It’s more like the threat satellite TV presents to the cable operators: The threat of competition.
Cable internet rates aren’t based on “cost plus”. They’re unregulated and based on what the market will bear. Economics 101. The cable companies, despite what you would like us to believe, charge as much as they can get away with regardless of their costs. It is their corporate legal responsibility to maximize profits. Your industry threats of rate punishment ring hollow. All it does is spread fear.
That’s a pretty big “if” there. You’re obviously making stuff up as those are nowhere near typical ISP bandwidth costs. I know, I work with this stuff. An ISP paying the rates you quote probably *should* go out of business.
But so what? The story wasn’t about ISP profits in the first place but about people operating open WiFi access points which don’t necessarily have anything to do with ISP’s, other than bypass them.
Re: Re: Public Servants are serving the public
“OK, I’ll play feed the turf troll.”
Not a troll, just someone who’s looking at a slightly larger picture.
“How much of a threat? In what way? To whom (your industry)? If in YOUR case in would be a considerable threat then you shouldn’t leave YOURS open. Maybe you should never leave home either.”
In the way that hacking someone’s system is easier from the inside of the router, rather than the outside. Personally, I leave my WiFi open, and just lock down my computer, but it’s still less secure than if I locked the router too.
“If you don’t know what you are doing, then maybe you should hire someone who does. Or bother to learn. Don’t beg the police to be everyone’s net nanny or to spread your FUD for you.”
Again, I know what I’m doing. Yes, telling people about potential threats is one of the police’s jobs. If they come to your door and tell you that an escaped murderer has been seen in your area, so please keep your doors and windows locked for your own safety, are you going to start shouting about ‘Big Brother’ trying to force you to not leave your house?
“They are intimidating people who run open WiFi access points. The police hate open WiFi because it can hamper surveilence. The Wireless ISP industry hates it because they see it as a threat to their business models.”
How the hell does open WiFi hamper surveillence? If anything, it makes it easier. If WiFi is open, the police could probably sit out on the street and watch the output without having to get a warrant or worry about wiretapping laws. WISP’s are allowed to dislike open WiFi, and one could make the case that it’s akin to sharing protected content: someone’s getting something for free, based on the fact that someone else paid for it.
“I have never, ever heard of the police going around telling people to close their garage doors. Maybe they do in some places, but I don’t think is very common. My house doesn’t even have a garage door, yet the police have never come around telling me to install one. And my nearest neighbors don’t even have a garage. Gee, maybe we an anti-auto-theft law making it illegal to park any auto outside of a “secured” garage and put the police on patrol to enforce it.”
Are you being willfully obtuse? I said informing you that your garage door is open, not telling you to close it. If someone steals from you, that’s your problem. They are just doing you a favor by mentioning it.
How is it that people will see a new public service, that they don’t have to pay extra for, and start decrying it as the work of ‘Big Brother’?
Re: Re: Re: Public Servants are serving the public
If it walks like a duck,…
This flip-flop brought to you by some who just previously posted “If I leave my WiFi unsecured, it poses a threat to me.”
Who’s shouting “Big Brother”, other than you? But to answer: Probably not. That would be an exceptional circumstance. I also would not object if they prevented someone from shooting me. So what? But if they start pulling me over in my car after dark to give me little “friendly warnings” to stay at home at night, then yes, I would object. Although not to their face, but anonymously if I could. Perhaps through open WiFi. Oops. I see your problem.
That you would seriously pose that question speaks volumes about you. Thank you for the expose.
Who said they weren’t?
Bull. You don’t own my network. If I want to provide open access to it, I will. If I don’t want to charge for it, I won’t. You’re starting to sound like SCO or M$ claiming Linux should be illegal because people don’t have to pay for it.
When the government starts sending the police or other armed forces around to give people a little friendly advice regarding their activities, most people recognize the implied threat involved. One has to be “obtuse” not to.
Enough with the apologetics already.
Let them target me...
My next step is to use the new linksys wifi router which uses the EV:DO for the wan side. A simple car a/c power supply to power the unit, and my wifi network follows me where I go. Tracking that should be interesting.
I left mine open on my own free will
Re: Re:
As did I. I want people to be able to connect if they want to.
Let me get this straight. If I wardrive, I’m a criminal. If the police wardrive, they are not criminals?
Can the police enter your garage if the garage door is left open?
Don't be mad, be thankful.
I live in Erie, PA (the North-Westernmost county in Pennsylvania, i.e. Lake Erie), and there’s about 5 WiFi hotspots in town. All of which you must pay for. The chance that people that live nearby have high-speed internet are slim to none, let alone running off of a wireless router. Just the fact that in some towns in the US the police have to intervene when it comes to War Driving, makes me wonder if my town is the last on the map that is new to WiFi. My wireless is unprotected, just because my closest neighbor is about 100 yards East of my current position. I’ll say it, I envy you guys a little.
Home sweet home
I actually live in Douglas County, Colorado, so I’m going to have to test this out and see what kind of response I get. I’ll see if I can’t pick up a second router this weekend and open it up.
What do you all think … should I simply set my SSID as my address (to make sure that I get the letter) or should I spice it up with something to really make them wonder? Suggestions will be considered 🙂
Hell, I just got a letter from my homeowners association about a dead spot of grass in my yard (we’re in a drought), so between the two of them I guess this will make me public enemy #1!
Re: Home sweet home
here’s my list of suggestions:
*Sniff* *Sniff* I smell bacon
Here, piggy piggy piggy
Sueee
Free Doughnuts
I grow marijuana
Anarchists Open Wireless Haven of Immorallity
Fuck the Police
this is simply their idea of sopistication. But wififo will do that with any wifi enabled phone for free.
I remember the days when I could war chalk an open connection and only a select and special few would know what it meant… now I walk into a starbucks and see a )( logo with the damn Mirmaid in the middle of it.
Is nothing sacred?
I live in Douglas Co too, have a few high power 2.4Ghz amps laying around. I’d say it’s time to setup FakeAP, and give Douglas County a run for their money. Nice to see my tax money being wisely spent.
http://www.blackalchemy.to/project/fakeap/
What does that mean when the cell cos start marrying cell phones with wifi?
For example, check out this Nokia phone
http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/02/13/5906.aspx
> “The 6136 will make calls from your home or hotspot and roam seamelessly onto GSM networks… “
Colorado police should do their real job, means catching a criminal instead of searching for open WiFi connection.
IMNSHO, its a throwback to the 70s, when the police would bumble into telling people what they could or couldn’t do on their cb radios. Nevermind they have no authority to do so. Nor the desire. It wouldn’t surprise me if after the first week, the entire patrol division reported no WiFi violators whatsoever.
I wonder how many /. readers are too young to get the title.
Come on folks!
They are just trying to protect the children from the terrorists, give em a break!
fine
i have no problem with the idea
BUT COME ON
get police to do the job they are meant to
yah, don’t have the fire dept. do it lol jp. But in all seriousness, the fact that the tax dollars are getting spent on dumb stuff lik this that aren’t necessary is just well dumb.
lighten up
Ok, folks, lighten up. Like one poster said, this doesn’t have to be a special “wardriving” patrol. It can be done while on regular patrol, and ignored when other more urgent things happen. What I AM glad to see is the police take a more active interest in crime PREVENTION for a change.
You know how they say the cops can’t do anything until a crime has actually been prevented? Well, if they see a citizen doing (or failing to do) something that can make them a crime victim, or an unwitting accomplice to a crime, they’ll usually speak up. That’s all this is doing. It’s the hi-tech version of the beat cop walking down the street checking all the doors to be sure they’re locked. Part of their job, really.
It’s like, say, that beat cop finds a shop owner that left his door open who says “Who cares, officer – nobody’s ever been burglarized here before!” That cop can then reply that a known burglar ring has targetted the town, and the shop owner should take precautions. These guys are doing the same thing – notifying owners of “unlocked doors” (open wifi points) that there are people who can and will take advantage of the open doors.
It is complicated by the fact that these open doors do not necessarily leave the wifi owner himself vulnerable – but it DOES leave the public vulnerable – to those that will use the anonymity of that open wifi point as a way to victimize others.
Re: lighten up
It is complicated by the fact that these open doors do not necessarily leave the wifi owner himself vulnerable – but it DOES leave the public vulnerable – to those that will use the anonymity of that open wifi point as a way to victimize others.
Got any good examples of how open WiFi harms the public? Cause I haven’t seen anything that was done on a private open WiFi that victimized any member of the public, or had the intent/possiblity of doing so.
I’d like to see a cost analysis of this program. Last year the TSA spent $6M disposing of lighters that people forgot to rid of before getting on the airplane.
TSA now wants to remove lighters off of the list so they can focus on more important items. To get this removed now, it will require an act of congress.
So how much it is going to cost to support such a programme?
Let’s play devil’s advocate here, for a moment, and assume the WiFi Patrol didn’t find your Grandma’s open AP. If something horrible did happen, and someone was downloading illicit content, on the wifi connection, one would have to conclude that the department may be liable for not enforcing their programme. Some times good intentions need to be balanced with common sense.
Threat vs. Cost vs. Freedom
Threats of open wifi:
– illicit activity from unmonitored access point
– higher bandwidth utilization on fewer access points, each on a static per month fee to upstream provider (i.e., ISP makes less money)
Solutions:
– give better tools for monitoring
– pay for bandwidth instead of connection
– have police patrol for open wifi systems
Problems with last solution
– police have better things to do
– expensive in equipment, training, and salary
– can easily lead to legal issues where police have yet another way of entering your house without a warrent due to “suspecion of open wifi”.
Conclusion:
– The threat is minimal in scope and impact
– The costs are not worth the benefit
– Can/Will lead to further degradation of libery, specifically: unwarrented search.
I thought we'd covered this.
Open WiFi is not illegal. Just like having an open garage door is not illegal. But either one of those is a good way to get victimized. The police are just letting you know that your virtual garage door is open. They aren’t forcing you to close it.
Bad cop, no doughnut
> What I AM glad to see is the police take a more active interest in crime PREVENTION for a change.
War driving is NOT a crime. And it is NOT a crime to leave a WiFi network that you PAID FOR and are maintaining open to public use. That’s called generousity.
As someone who does have a WiFi network that is partially open on purpose, I am abhored that the police are knocking on our doors and telling us to close our networks.
The whole purpose of this is to prevent people from having free alternatives to paying for Internet access. It’s really just another violation of anti-trust laws. If I want to allow a stranger to use some of my overflowing bandwidth, I should be allowed to do it. I’m not sharing content; I’m sharing a pipeline. It’s no different than allowing someone to make a call using your phone. I guess that will be illegal next.
I thought we'd covered this
@Adam,
Good point. I would still prefer our neighbors to point these things out than the police. (Not invalidating your point)
I forsee legistlation that would have minimal requirements on AP security. I believe there was a proposal (in Britian?) that mandated that the default SSID must be changed which would not improve security. I don’t know what to expect from US legistlators, but it’s advisable to stay alert and do not allow them to use some emotional issue (e.g., child pornography) to lead you to freedom limiting laws.
I still think my point about the benefits vs. costs is still valid.
Re: I thought we'd covered this
In some places, the police are neighbors.
I lived in an urban boro that bordered a reasonably sized city. The
local police officer would drive down the street every evening, and
the kids would wave, and sometimes the car would stop and the kids
would go over and talk to the officer. It wasn’t just one particular
officer either – but the kids knew the cops as friendly, and the cops
knew the neighbors and the neighborhood.
One day I had a really bad day, and I left my car door open (with the
dome light on). The cops ran my plate, and since my phone number is
unlisted, they rang my front doorbell to tell me that I’d left my door
open. The kids might have done the same, but this was after dark, and
the kids were in for the evening.
But, no – they wouldn’t have gone thru that trouble if I’d merely
left the windows rolled down.
I think this is good
I love living in a small town. Sometimes we forget to lock up the office. The cops out here acutally wallk the street and check for such things. When we do goof they lock the door for us. Very nice!
I put this in the same category.
Re: I think this is good
The police have keys to everyone’s doors? Just what “small town” is this anyway?
Thought so.
will the cops be warchalking too?
that would be cool.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/78/Warchalking.png
Set your SSID to ‘FreeDonuts’