free2air - Open Distributed Public Network Infrastructure free2air proudly hosts / provisions

ambient tv offices

newsfilter - blog blog blog raylab

over wireless public access networks


Front Page · Forums · News · Everything · OpenNAP Diaries
Projects : Toy Satellite · East End Net · Air Shadow · Wireless Ant Farm

BBC reports on unethical network scans through wireless gateways?

vortex's Diary
By vortex, Section Diaries
Posted on Thu Dec 20th, 2001 at 01:26:52 GMT
The BBC posted a sensationalistic article about 'war pedalling' entitled 'Welcome to the era of drive-by hacking'

"BBC News Online was shown just how easy it was by two ethical hackers who prefer to be known as Codex and Kuji. We drove with the pair around London's financial district."

Well, where were you 6 months ago, guys? ;-)

"Any maliciously minded hacker could easily join these networks and piggy back on their fast net links, steal documents or subvert other machines on the systems to do their bidding." "None of the wireless networks we found used anything but their flawed, in-built security systems to protect against hack attacks.

Ouch, for their own sake, I hope the BBC don't mean that. If this is accurate (it may not be), this means the BBC accompanied two 'ethical hackers' while they not only mapped wireless gateways, but attempted to probe for security holes & vulnerabilities beyond the wireless gateway.

Probing a network in such a manner could be construed (especially by its owner) as a hostile act. Without prior consent of the owner of the network, it is at best unethical and at worst, even perhaps illegal.

If scanning, sniffing, and vulnerability probing was performed on networks as they 'drove by', they were accessing networks and computers without authority. They would be in possession of detailed roadmaps of weaknesses on networks and hosts perhaps deep within each network they passed.

warpeddlaz do not condone or engage such activities.

[Clarification: Just in case you haven't got this, warpeddlaz only detect beaconing and associations at the 802.11 level. No network IP traffic is sent or sniffed when performing war peddling. No IP networks are probed, monitored, or used. At all.]

I suspect the BBC should research exactly what the act of 'war driving/peddalling/walking' actually is, given the analogy of 'war dialing'. Despite the emotive word 'war', war dialing is merely the action of detecting what was at the end of a phone line (human, fax, modem, or menu system, or ...). By definition, this did not include any subsequent hostile network attack.

 

< Spray On 'Graffitti'-style Wireless LAN Antenna (4 comments) | GZ - the story of groundzero (1 comments) >

Menu
· submit story
· create account
· faq
· search
· donate

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:

Related Links
· 'Welcome to the era of drive-by hacking'
· vortex's Diary

View: Display: Sort:
BBC reports on unethical network scans through wireless gateways? | 1 comments (1 topical, editorial, 0 pending)
fiberglass none (#1)
by Anonymous Hero on Sat Dec 4th, 2004 at 02:39:26 GMT

flashlights,GOOGLEÅÅ Ãû,ÍøÕ¾½¨Éè,welding blankets,fabrics,fiberglass,fiberglass,fiberglass yarns,ceramic fiber,ceramic fiber cloth,ceramic fiber ropes,tadpole tapes,pneumatic,pneumatic,solenoid,pneumatic,pneumatic,treatment unit,ÆøÃÅ ×ì,fan belt,timing belt,v- belt,fuel hose,oil seal,radiator hose,rubber hose,GOOGLEÅÅÃû ,ÍøÕ¾½¨Éè,lost wax casting,Carbon Steel casting,iron casting,precision casting china,investment casting china



 
BBC reports on unethical network scans through wireless gateways? | 1 comments (1 topical, editorial, 0 pending)
View: Display: Sort:

freenetworks.org freenetworks.org freenetworks.org freenetworks.org freenetworks.org freenetworks.org
SourceForge Logo Powered by Scoop
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1999 The Management

submit story | create account | faq | search