The Queensland Police fraud squad says it will be the first police force in the world to go on "wardriving" missions to warn homes and businesses if their wireless networks are not secure.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/police-declare-war-on-wifi-freeloaders-20090721-drqq.html

heh, isnt that nice of them.

ive always been a little sad that there was no unsecured wireless in my area.

Will they have officers trained to read those wifi hobo chalk marks? (And will they run wifi hobos out of town?)

^ warchalking

my mate had his home wifi hacked into recently.
he reckons, technically, if someone knows what there doing, there is NO way to stop them.

my mate had his home wifi hacked into recently.
he reckons, technically, if someone knows what there doing, there is NO way to stop them.

Really? I would have thought that hidden broadcast + MAC filtering + WPA2 with a strong password would be near impossible to break. You can also turn down the transmit strength on your router to the point where it's not going beyond your property.

wep is easily cracked if someone wants in:

if you really want to keep someone out though, you can;

So is there no way to lock your router to your pc? So only your laptop or wireless device can connect? Through some unique identifier on the device.

I know sfa about networking....

Yeah my neighbours have unsecured wireless
i can get it fine if i sit in my garage
pity its bigpond 256k.

I've got the lowest WEP on mine simply becuase no-one around me has half a clue about IT and it'd be enough to stop anyone. Plus i'm only 700m from the exchange so anyone who wants seriously fast net can do so for cheap.

wep is easily cracked if someone wants in:

Shh, don't tell Obes that. He'll cry and implode into a bitterness bomb.

Wait, what?

The POLICE are going to break into people's wireless networks? Pretty sure that's not what tax dollars are for, it's not something we want...

What's next - go door "knocking" to see who didn't lock up this morning?

ISWYD in the topic davey

wpa with a random full length hex key is effectively secure.

he reckons, technically, if someone knows what there doing, there is NO way to stop them.

WEP is easy to crack, but WPA2 etc. is pretty difficult.

So is there no way to lock your router to your pc? So only your laptop or wireless device can connect? Through some unique identifier on the device.

I know sfa about networking....

yer, you can only allow certain mac addresses to connect to your network, but these can be spoofed (teehee)

The POLICE are going to break into people's wireless networks? Pretty sure that's not what tax dollars are for, it's not something we want... What's next - go door "knocking" to see who didn't lock up this morning?

They frequent my train station checking for unlocked doors and open windows and leave a little "report" on your windscreen regardless if your car is secure or not.

Seems like a waste of time, but I have seen numerous cars chilling with windows down in my time.

It's more of a proactive way to police than reactive.

Can only be a good thing?

I am wanting to believe people are fundamentally good, so i just use WEP.

I see a law in the future where Police have the right to drive around searching our Computers drives for illegal material. Because Pedophiles store Child Pornography on their Computers will be the reason. Only someone with something to hide would not want Police to search their computers.

When was the last time the Police relaxed a Law ? They are always on the lookout for new ways to increase control.
Their up to something.
Possibly a few Pedos have been claiming that they have unsecured Wireless and Police cant prove they DL their filth.
This is like Police wandering around streets searching unlocked homes.
Its an assault on Privacy.

They're up to something.

Also people might want to store commercially confidential material on their PC or private amateur pron or a draft of their uncompleted thesis/novel, all completely legal.

There is plenty of stuff that people may wish to store privately on their PCs which the authorities have no right to inspect without reasonable cause, let alone invading the systems wirelessly by hacking their wifi connection.

Stay the f*** out of my home unless you have a warrant.

Guess I better remove my protections from my wireless. If you get in without authenticating properly it will bombard your PC with random files and fill your hdd. :D (stolen from a bash.org quote and modified to work.)

if they can hack your mobile phone they can hack your wireless network it is nor secure by any means

faceman
are you referring to information published in some other article than the one in the original post? cos the one spook posted has _nothing_ to do with invading privacy or new laws

if they can hack your mobile phone they can hack your wireless network it is nor secure by any means

are you suggesting mobile phones use the same encryption systems as say, wireless wpa?

last edited by Jim at 13:27:03 22/Jul/09

JIm, when was the last time the Police came around to your place and offered to help you out without you asking ?

They are up to something.

actually police come to my place of business all the time. all forms of emergency services are visiting my business all the time helping us to prevent fire, or responding to injury.

Every time i have asked the police to come to my business in relation to reporting of a crime they have always helped me and it has yielded results on numerous occasions, they have helped me evict defaulting tenants, they have promptly investigated anti-social behaviour (grafitti, B&E, disturbances).

In fact I don't have a single example of when they didn't act in good faith. Every ticket they got me on was fair and square I must confess. So don't be so harsh on coppers.

Now the intelligence community, they are a different kettle of fish, and ethics are a little more rubbery there I would imagine. But as long as Jack Bauer is on the job I am pretty relaxed.

last edited by infi at 13:36:18 22/Jul/09

So, people can hax into nasa to seak out secret files, yet people on this forum think their fully sick wireless security skills are impenetrable to hax0rs. On the flip side, who gives a f***? Oh noes someone is going to use some of my 120GB quota.

Moral of the story is, /agreed with whoever said this is a complete waste of my tax dollars.

Well....


Mobile phone encryption was hamstrung several years ago when the AFP said it would be a disadvantage to have to spend more than 24hours cracking a single phone call. So they limited the encryption abilities of phones in australia to 56bit ( it also doesn't include any basic evasion techniques like rotating keys or randomizing of IV's). WPA2 hasn't been cracked yet, it can be brute forced but its one of those 30+ year jobs to succeed.

did you even read the article faceman? they're not offering to help us out for nothing. there's a clear benefit for the police the fewer unsecured wireless networks there are

There's a few insecure connections around my area only one is visible from my house but a few are visible from my mates place (just up the road).

On the flip side, who gives a f***? Oh noes someone is going to use some of my 120GB quota.

I don't download anything naughty so personally I'd be pretty f***ing pissed off if I got a letter from the RIAA because some wanker decided to use my internet to download the latest cam rip of some f***** ass film like bruno.

The sad thing is the owner of the connection is responsible for whatever anyone downloads using it.

At least youd have someone to blame for the full season of 1080p gilmore girls whoop.

if they can hack your mobile phone they can hack your wireless network it is nor secure by any means

Stop watching Today Tonight.

Lowering the transmit power of your wireless router to a 1 meter radius is the best defence against hacking.

^^ Don't most routers do that automatically :P

Wireless is s***

Dam you koopz, you posted and ruined my carat quote

last edited by HERMITech at 18:36:54 22/Jul/09

fuxed ;)

At least youd have someone to blame for the full season of 1080p gilmore girls whoop.

Already got the entire series on DVD, I don't need to download it.

lol dvd

I use WEP, but only because my girlfriend always wants to use the net on her DS, and the stupid thing doesn't support WPA2. Yay.

Really? I would have thought that hidden broadcast + MAC filtering + WPA2 with a strong password would be near impossible to break

Hidden broadcast and MAC filtering only stops casual peeking. Only takes a small program or command to overcome them. WPA2 on the other hand is the real defence and I'd call it secure for most purposes - as long as you stay away from dictionary words in your password, etc.

Wireless is s***

I'm loving wireless after buying the right equipment (i.e. stay away from Netgear/Dlink), go generic.

wireless has its place, if you cant hardwire

wifi is great if you don't do it wrong.
9 times out of 10 if you don't have s*** hardware and you have a small amount of encryption, you're in for plain sailing.

I like wireless. My PC is wired, because I stream HD content to the PS3, but I happily used wireless before I was doing that without any issues.

I do 1080p over wireless here at home with my old crusty belkin no probs

802.11n <3
MAC filtering <3

Yeah, I've had luck with -some- 1080p files. 720p played fine, but 1080p was too unreliable, with about 50% of files just stuttering far too much to be watchable. So, instead of trying to find workaround solutions, I just ran a cable to the router. Haven't had a problem since.

I use WEP, but only because my girlfriend always wants to use the net on her DS, and the stupid thing doesn't support WPA2. Yay.

yeah this is still an ongoing issue here at home as well, mostly when friends/rellies come over with their mobiles/pdas/laptops and my Wii.

I plug in a cheapie old $10 Asus 54g AP that just runs unsecured for when people need to get on the network temporarily.

yeah thats the deal with the wii?

i picks it up as WPA2 but just won't connect?

does it not like WPA2?

My wii works ok on WPA2, although I had to set my router to channel 11 for the wii to reliably pick it up. The wii's network setup thing is incredibly lame, having to wait the better part of a minute every time it does it's test, whether it's working or not.

I've stream 720p stuff over the lan ok, only a few stutters over a 2 hour movie. Jim: if you're doing 1080p just fine, I imagine you mustn't have any other devices sharing the wireless? Either that, or the Belkin has some sweet QoS. Speeds tend to go to crap on mine with the more devices that are sharing the spectrum laptops/consoles/phones etc.

it picks up the wireless networks around, i click to connect to mine it asks me for the password i put the password in and then just says it can't connect...

Yeah, I had that exact same problem before setting my router to chan 11, sometimes it would work, others it wouldn't but now it seems pretty reliable. Guessing it's because most neighboring wifi networks will be on the central channels by default and the wii is more fickle about interference *shrug*.

yeh there's bugger all other use of the wireless - a handful of devices connected to it (tivo, wii, wife's imac+macbook, our iphones, printer) but not usually doing anything at the same time as we're watching

one thing I have noticed between wireless and wired with HD media is the fast forwarding - on wireless I wait 3 seconds for it to buffer and play again, on wired it's instant

Wireless sucks balls, i couldn't even get a constant signal in my house cause of the 2 phone lines + it going through a bunch of electronique goods. Gogo some cables through the roof imo, hack that.

I havent read any of the above sorry if this has already been said.
How the f*** has this got anything to do with the police? Shouldn't they be, oh I dont know, out enforcing the f***ing law!

yeh you should read it :)

Just knocked another interface into smoothwall running chilispot, have a guess what happens when your not an authenticated client -> browser check then HTTP redirect to a number of interesting sites.

http://www.chillispot.info/

Some of you guys may want to try the OpenWRT version

DISCLAIMER: This site is a duplicate of the original chillispot.org domain which is no longer exists. All information, including documentation, information and binary firmware releases are copyrighted by chillispot.org. The goal is to provide an information source for those visitors who are looking for the Chillispot project. The Chillispot project is no longer maintained. There is a newer project, called CoovaChilli which is based on Chillispot.

I happen to have the old binaries for it

802.1x RADIUS authentication +enforced strong passwords +enforced password rotations = reasonably secure ;)

(yes, this is what I'm running at home)

can someone explain to me how this works practically? The popo rock up in their nerdvan and realise there is an unsecured wireless to connect to, but how do they know which house's door to knock on? It could be any of 10+ houses (more with units) are they going to look dumb and knock on all doors?

It seems extremely labour intensive which coukd be achieved with a letter to every house in australia 10million*50c

Unless there's a way to find out what direction a wifi signal is coming from?

Unless there's a way to find out what direction a wifi signal is coming from?

Yeah, build a reflector out of cardboard and alfoil to add directionality to your antenna, then triangulate:

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/parabolic_1d_shot.jpg

except something like that would have a beam width of probably 45+ degrees

except something like that would have a beam width of probably 45+ degrees

45 degrees is still a huge improvement over 360 degrees :)

send them somewhere else?

I've gotta pull the finger out and do this

haha awesome