Large-Format Printable Wardriving Maps of Seattle 204
drewzhrodague writes "In what is sure to tie up a few print queues, us guys at WiFiMaps.com have released large-format printable maps of Seattle. These were generated during a collaboration with the University of Washington's communications department. This is one of the most comprehensive Wi-Fi mapping project to date, as 100 undergrads swarmed downtown Seattle to collect wardriving data. We've rendered their results at 300dpi, for letter, tabloid, and architectural E sized paper. There is both the standard layout, and the aerial versions available using bittorrent."
Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
I wonder if say Linksys(Cisco) have a wardriving squad just to see where the Netgear and D-link costumers live. They could probably use the BSSID instead of just relying on people not changing the default ESSID=NETGEAR,linksys.
Or they could search for access points with a lot of clients, match them to their own costumers, and target them to sell extra accesspoints.
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:3, Insightful)
(And also, it's impossible to actually "steal" the car, you can only bring it for a joyride. Or whatever the correct analogy would be.)
What's special about wifi? (Score:1)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:1)
Re:Now you too can be arrested for war-driving... (Score:2)
Unbinding any protocols from your NIC before wardriving should help you there. That way you can't be accused of trying to penetrate the discovered LANs. You're also less likely to be flagged by an IDS.
Simply detecting radio signals on publicly accessible (and unlicensed) frequencies isn't a crime.
Of course, I'm a geek not a lawyer, so what do I know?
bittorrent (Score:1)
Re:bittorrent (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bittorrent (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:IM MIRRORING (Score:2)
Re:IM MIRRORING (Score:2, Funny)
Better give this one to the wife... (Score:5, Funny)
Amazing (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Well.... (Score:1)
Not bad, but... (Score:5, Funny)
No reason, really. Honest.
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
The FBI does a sweeping investigation of the Redmond, WA area after Bill Gates found adult videos and yachts were being billed on his credit cards without his knowledge.
FBI director Robert Mueller refused to comment on whether Internet hackers stole his numbers from a Microsoft Word Document he stored on his laptop, only adding "If the crooks like porn, it's not our business."
More news at 11.
Don't you mean.. (Score:1, Funny)
Legality? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Legality? (Score:3, Interesting)
If anyone needs it, I will witness under oath that my access point is open to everyone intentionally.
As a christian I believe it is my duty to give away that which doesn't cost me. (and in some cases that which costs me, but that is a more complex area)
Re:Legality? (Score:2)
THANK YOU! (Score:2)
Re:Legality? (Score:2)
That isn't because of law but because of common sense.
map of my home town (Score:5, Funny)
that's the map. Just my house and my neighbors. Maybe I need to wardrive Baltimore. If anybody has tell me
the Wifi network thing is an ok idea, but... (Score:1)
Arrests (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Arrests (Score:3, Insightful)
So we can't even assume that Joe Somebody is aware that users outside his apartment, house, or network, can use his network. His neighbor's TV rem
Re:Arrests (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
So by your logic, if somebody leave's their car unlocked it's legal for me to steal it? After all they should of 'properly configured' the locks.
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
However, I do disagree with the poster when he states:
but if you're just leeching their internet access it should certainly not be a crim
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
So I'll postulate this... If I stand outside your house and switch your TV to a different channel for me to watch - would you mind that ?
I'm not denying you of any service, you can easily flip it back to wha
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
You raise a few interesting points, which I will address. Note that where I say 'you' I mean a hypothetical 'you', being either TV-flipping victim or wardriver where applicable.
Point: There isn't a mechanism build into the TV to allow only your remote control to change its channels.
Reply: In a way, they do. Your TV responds only to signals from remotes from the same manufacturer - and even they produce ones with different signal codes. Otherwise it would be difficult to have two T
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
1) TV's do
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Err
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Because:
1. Most cars have more than one seat.
2. Most cars are occupied by only one person.
3. Most people drive with their car doors unlocked.
Then: When a car stops next to me, I can get in and get a ride to wherever the next place that the car stops next. I bathe everyday, and I am not to big, and those back seats are empty anyway. Hell, I'll be quick to get in and out and won't even say a word to the driver, so her driving experience should be the same as if I were not there. No?
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Because:
1. Most cars have more than one seat.
2. Most cars are occupied by only one person.
3. Most people drive with their car doors unlocked.
Then: When a car stops next to me, I can ask the driver if they would give me a lift to wherever they happen to be going. The driver is free to say yes or no, and continue on their journy accordingly. Actually, the point if the doors are locked or unlocked is irrelavent, because you ask permission from the driver.
In terms of
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
(Just so you know, where _I_ stand: I use my neighbours' unsecuread APs all the time. I am on a very narrow "broadband" pipe, and my neighbours are on MUCH wider ones. So, at night I let one of my boxes lose and get whatever I need. Although I do this without their permission, I really don't know who the kind bandwidth donnors are, I am in no way kidding my
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Yes, that is what it boils down to. If my neighbor stored his lawn mower on my lawn, would you think it theft for me to use it every once in a while to mow my yard? After all, if he didn't want me to use it, he wouldn't leave it in my yard with the keys in it.
How about if I found a newspaper on my front porch every day, but I didn't order a paper? Sho
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
If you only ever use 1/4 of your bandwidth, and someone else uses 1/2 without your permission or knowledge (excepting cases of metered usage), how does this affect you?
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
If you don't want people ransacking your living room, install Chubb locks, bolt them securely every time you leave the house, don't whine about theft to the police.
Okay, common sense really. Every knows to lock their doors these days. It's just that in days gone by (or perhaps in other communities or countries, eg, New Zealand), people could leave
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests-Hammer Time. (Score:2)
Identity theft.
The parent suggested it was as if someone ransacked their living room. I was referring back to this analogy. Identify theft is certainly not the same as ransacking a livingroom.
"If you broadcast into my space, it should be fully within my rights to take advantage of whatever data or service is on those waves."
Geeks make lousy lawyers.
So, you really don't
Re:Arrests-Busted Time. (Score:2)
Re:Arrests-Busted Time. (Score:2)
You may be right, but doesn't that just confirm what I said about lack of respect for other people's possessions...?
Some nitwit drops his wallet in the street, so of course we should have the legal freedom of "finders, keepers."
I mean, if he's too stupid to secure it in his back pocket and it's just lying there on the sidewalk - which i
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Emphasis added by me. It's theirs, not yours. You can't dictate 'oh well if they didn't want me on they would of said so' that's not your call to make.
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
E.g. my PDA is set to connect to wireless networks. I open it in the bus to check the calendar. It automatically connects to an open access point. A daemon such as ntpd or mta is starts and use the internet. Did I abuse it?
Or I go to a cafe, buy a cup of coffee, starts my laptop. The sign on the door says they have free wireless internet. Hmm, I see access points named NETGEAR, default, linksys, default, abcde, and WIRELESS. The girl at the counter does not know anything abo
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
See thats what I'm talking about. Personal responsibility. While I really don't consider the radio waves that carry signals to and from my pc to a wireless access point as "private property", if the person who set up the wireless network let it be known that anyone intruding on the network would end up with a "brain-full of lead" they would probably have a significant reduction of users piggybacking on their internet connection. Or they could simply secur
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
What can you possibly mean? The access point is doing the fundamental thing that indicates I have permission to use it. It's giving me access! If the access point wasn't doing anything that gave me permission to use it, then I wouldn't be able to use it. That is how the thing implicitly works.
Your golf course analogy flat out fails. You say "If I break onto a private golf course." Requesting and being given an IP from
Insecure by ignorance or design? (Score:2)
In light of this, I think the whole argument about whether finding and using APs is illegal is nonsense. What's the difference between an open-by-ignorance and open-by-design AP? Nothing. May
Re:Insecure by ignorance or design? (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
This comparison is rediculous. You can't simply check a few security settings on youself and be "secure" from a mugger. You can however do just that to secure your wireless network from outside users.
"The ISP down the road has to recoup their costs, and who pays?"
Gee I'd say this was pretty simple. First off, most broadband accounts are capped in terms of upstream and downstream to prevent this ver
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
WPA works well[1], when switched on.
[1] For suitably small values of "well"; it's usually enough to keep the casual wardrivers out, and if nothing else it is a statement that the network is not intended to be open.
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
Re:Arrests (Score:2)
It's more a case of someone asking for your watch and you saying sure and giving it to them.
We need a self-localizing map application. (Score:3, Interesting)
It will never beat GPS, but it would be cool to create a city-wide navigation system that works on WiFi -- "just turn left when you get max signal from MAC 00 60 1D 1C B9 0D."
Re:We need a self-localizing map application. (Score:2)
although, it's not uncommon for me to be mistaken.
Re:We need a self-localizing map application. (Score:3, Informative)
How accurate does it need to be? (Score:2)
I agree with you, but don't think it hinders the system as much as it might seem. The key is that most base stations have limited range -- if I can detect the signal at some normal strength level (e.g., not using a cantenna), I know I'm within a 50-100 meters of the transmitter.
What got me thinking about this was my experience on a recent business trip. Sitting in my room at a bed-n-breakfast, I was picking up 4 wireles
Re:We need a self-localizing map application. (Score:2)
Wigle just a little bit [wigle.net]
What I want to see (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What I want to see (Score:2)
It is all about the culture of fear.
Strange Request (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Strange Request (Score:1)
Re:Strange Request (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Strange Request (Score:2, Informative)
http://slashmirror.abnormal.com/
366 MB?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:366 MB?! (Score:3, Funny)
Bittorrent? (Score:2)
Re:Bittorrent? (Score:2)
For what it's worth, I've finished downloading both torrents and I'm now seeding them at a total of about 20Mbit/s right now (1.3MB/s on one, 700KB/s on the other).. so there's definitely nothing wrong with the torrent.
Re:Bittorrent? (Score:2)
Are you behind a firewall?
Do you have several pieces available for trade yet?
Are you uploading at a double-digit speed?
I'm currently downloading at 20.7K/s with Azureus.
As far as can a swarm be slashdotted or not, I've seen discussions of that topic, but with only 70 peers visible in the swarm right now, we are nowhere near the level of that happening.
Re:Bittorrent? (Score:2)
For the love of god..... (Score:2, Informative)
Version 2.0 (Score:2)
Small problem. My buddy in Seattle just shut off his WiFi router. Now the map is out of date.
For the next version, why not release this with a program that wardrivers can use to automatically detect and upload changes to the server? The open source/wiki development model seems to be even better suited to this than to, say, an OS or encyclopedia.
Re:Version 2.0 (Score:2)
That's something I'll be installing when I finish my "carputer". I hacked my nav system to be a tv and take 3 input sets. I'm spec'ing a carputer for one of the input sets, and will be running gpsdrive among other things on it. GPS Drive integrates directly with Kismet and updates maps live with hit data. I prefer wigle.net myself, and built one of the wiki pages. Now
Netstumbler?? (Score:2)
Anyway, I'm surprised that they used NetStumbler on Windows XP for their network detection. Our class used Kismet on Linux.
Netstumbler is a completely active tool. As I recall, sends out association packets and listens for AP
Re:Netstumbler?? (Score:2)
Of course, the UW project was for a Communications Class. Our Information Warfare class was, of course, a Computer Science class.
Even with the customized Knoppix CD I built for the wardrive, we still had problems with getting the wardrive equipment working properly. NetStumbler in a Windows environment is, of course, going to much more familiar to Communications students than Kismet (a CLI tool) on Linux.
Still a neat project. I'd like to know a bit more about how they stitched t
Re:Netstumbler?? (Score:2)
As a point of reference, our class wardrive found 1656 infrastructure networks (according to Kismet), and we didn't even cover a quarter of the city.
Not to mention that Spokane was a downtown-wide hotzone [spokanehotzone.com]?
Don't forget that Spokane was just ranked in the top ten Intelligent Communities in of the World, including the highest-ranking city in the United States [terabytetriangle.com]. (We came in at number eight in the world this year, second place (and still tops in the US) last year IIRC).
Spokane, being the largest city betwee
Re:Netstumbler?? (Score:2)
Now hosted on my fast server (Score:2, Informative)
Re:OMG (Score:3, Funny)
I can see mine too... It's clearly marked default... d'oh!
I wish I saw my house =_( (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Better watch it (Score:2)
You're distributing information. Don't you know that's illegal now?
Unless it is false information that benefits Microsoft. That is legal until SCO patents it.
Vector lines, vs Raster aerial photos (Score:2)
Re:hmm (Score:2)
I keep searching EBay for ink for my Encad Novajet II. Of course, I'll either print maps of where I am, Pittsburgh.
on second thought...