News

Guide to open WiFi sites scares timid hack - again

Normally, when some local newspaper reporter discovers WiFi, they simply can't resist writing a scare story about security - and there's little point in reading it. But for once,  there was a nugget of real information in a report by Detroit Free Press - it has discovered Wigle.

The story is a classic WiFi scare: "Zing! There was a school. Zing! There was a branch of a hospital. Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! An apartment building, blissfully packed with people shopping online and answering their e-mail...had we been hackers, a few taps on the laptop and we could have seen everything many of those folks were doing, exploring the secrets they thought were safely stored on their hard drives."

One could write the same story about driving down a street at night with a flashlight, checking for reflections in window glass: "Zing! There was a school. Zing! There was a branch of a hospital. Zing! Zing! Zing! Zing! An apartment building, with several empty apartments ...had we been burglars, a few taps on the glass and we could have stolen everything many of those folks owned, exploring the secrets they thought were safely locked behind their front doors."

But for once, the author had done a little homework, and discovered the Wireless Geographic Logging Engine, or Wigle. Wigle tracks open WiFi so that those of us who leave our own access points open can find other people with the same attitude.

It also points to the World Wide Wardrive which does more of the same.

Sensible network users, of course, will have password protection on their own hard disks for sensitive information (pictures of the boyfriend in his underpants?) and if they don't, they are vulnerable to any passing Israeli or Ukranian Internet hacker. And no, they aren't going to drive all the way from Tel Aviv to Detroit just to see if there's anything vaguely naughty on Heather Newman's laptop.

Heather Newman's excited report

Wigle's home page