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Networking Security

Defcon "Warballoon" Finds 1/3 of Wireless Networks Unsecured 209

avatar4d writes "Networkworld is reporting about a warballooning operation (similar to wardriving) that was disallowed by the management at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, but was covertly launched anyway. The team found approximately 370 networks, and about a third of those were unsecured. In addition to that, the project managed to show how trusting the local law enforcement agencies really were: 'Near the end of the operation, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police cruiser drove by the parking lot to see what was going on. Hill and his team waved. The police officers waved back and drove off.'"
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Defcon "Warballoon" Finds 1/3 of Wireless Networks Unsecured

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  • by blhack ( 921171 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:38PM (#24547017)

    Will everybody please STFU about securing your wifi..

    Cracking their wep when I'm on the road and without my gear is a pain in the ass!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by uassholes ( 1179143 )
      A lot of businesses provide unsecured wifi deliberately. Who gives a fuck.

      From TFA

      Something less bellicose might not have caught anyone's attention.

      A better word than bellicose would be childish.

      • Re:i hate you all (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 10, 2008 @03:14PM (#24547995)

        Yes, ours is "unsecured". It gets you to a DNS which answers only one query and an "internet" where the only thing that you can send to is an IPSEC VPN server. Much good may it do you. DefCon should concentrate on real security (is IPSEC as good as OpenVPN or does it's over-compexity make it more vulnerable) and not messing around with pretending to secure your wireless with WEP/WPA and all the other hop by hop garbage.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      My thing is i don't understand why people don't just make unsecured wifi routers that firewall one user from another. That way, you can get on the internet from it, but it's much harder to hack others on the same segment.

      • wtf? how the fuck do you firewall one computer connected wirelessly from a 2nd connected wirelessly with the ability to spoof the router?

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by icebike ( 68054 )

          Easy. Don't allow traffic between any IPs behind the router, other than TO the router itself.

          This is trivial with Iptables.

          That would force users behind the router to connect via its external NIC to talk to each other, and that can be filtered easily as well.

          You can't really spoof a machine on your own subnet.

  • by superj711 ( 992784 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:42PM (#24547057)
    I don't believe this a good test of "security" since the majority of the hotels on the Strip have multiple unsecure Wifi networks for their guests. You have to go to a launch page first before you're even allowed access, sometimes entering a code.
    • by ghoti ( 60903 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:05PM (#24547343) Homepage

      Exactly. 1/3 is actually a pretty good number, and shows that the casinos are taking security seriously. Plus, I wonder how many networks they didn't even see because they weren't broadcasting their SSIDs. This whole thing seems to be much more about doing something cool and making a lot of noise than any kind of serious analysis.

      • by Fulcrum of Evil ( 560260 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:09PM (#24547393)
        Broadcasting your SSID is only relevant if you have no traffic. If you have traffic, your SSId shows up anyway.
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by dfn_deux ( 535506 )
          Thanks for this, I have repeated this comment hundreds of times to various people setting up their networks and yet they still seem to think that setting the essid as "hidden" is providing some small extra security, when in fact it only obscures your network for legitimate users, since anyone sniffing for a networks will see it regardless of whether you have it set to broadcast or not.
          • by cjb658 ( 1235986 )

            Thanks for this, I have repeated this comment hundreds of times to various people setting up their networks and yet they still seem to think that setting the essid as "hidden" is providing some small extra security, when in fact it only obscures your network for legitimate users, since anyone sniffing for a networks will see it regardless of whether you have it set to broadcast or not.

            Worse, when your clients can't see the cloaked SSID, they send probes for it that include the SSID. If it's an obscure one, you can just go to Wigle [wigle.net] and find out where that AP is. A bit of a privacy problem, if you don't want random people to know where you live, especially if you're out of town.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          Depends with what software they have been 'sniffing'.

          SSID is broadcasted in 802.11 beacon frame, along with some other stuff.

          So if you turn off the SSID broadcasting, you'r removing the SSID info from the body of beacon packet, so regardless you have traffic or no, your AP is gonna show up (without ssid so you will not know the name of ap) in something more advanced then netstubmler. Kismet for example.

          This has nothing to do with traffic amount.

      • by BLKMGK ( 34057 )

        They used Kismet, they see you broadcast or not by looking at the existing traffic. The summary is crap BTW. Rick and crew weren't happy about the cops because they had been told that the police would be "looking for them". Seems that naming the project "warballooning" might not have been a good idea! This was primarily to demonstrate the ability to scan\see networks from a long standoff distance.

        The secure\unsecure figures weren't even mentioned in the talk and were brought up only after *I* shouted a ques

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by espiesp ( 1251084 )

      As somebody that currently lives a block away from the Luxor and Mandalay Bay, I can accurately say that you don't have to drive far from the strip to find a very high density of wireless access points, with approximately this ratio of secured to unsecured points. Within reach of the confines of my condo I have a buffet of wide open AP.

      Take the strip out of the equasion and I think it's still valid.

    • by cjb658 ( 1235986 )

      I don't believe this a good test of "security" since the majority of the hotels on the Strip have multiple unsecure Wifi networks for their guests. You have to go to a launch page first before you're even allowed access, sometimes entering a code.

      I was at DEFCON and stayed at Circus Circus. In about 30 seconds, I cloned someone else's MAC address and was on their WiFi. Also I could have pulled up Wireshark and seen all their traffic (see: Wall of Sheep).

  • by yourpusher ( 161612 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:42PM (#24547059) Homepage Journal

    If the police flip out over something we do, they're overreacting idiots that don't understand technology.

    But if the police don't flip out over something we do, they're underreacting idiots who aren't keeping us safe.

    Mmkay.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by OverlordQ ( 264228 )

      If your UID wasn't so slow I'd have to say "Welcome to Slashdot, you must be new here", but now I'm rather stumped on what to say.

    • by lukas84 ( 912874 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:48PM (#24547129) Homepage

      Police should only employ top specialists in every topic there is, so they can make a judgment on of any situation on site.

      That way, when somebody lies on the street and needs a heart transplant, the police can help him on-site. No special equipment needed, a chewing gum and a swiss army knife will do th etrick.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        If people weren't overspecialized by the public stupefaction system police actually would be able to deal correctly with a larger number of situations. However, this is not in the interests of those who want a stupid, brutal police state.
        • by icebike ( 68054 )

          To sat nothing of the interests of people who just want freedom in their everyday lives.

    • by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:03PM (#24547313) Homepage Journal

      You make a good point, however I guess I would ask why any rational society would expect just those two modes of operation. Neither seems that useful. Wouldn't it be more logical to expect either the police to come over and say hi, or to take a note of the registration and car details (not necessarily visibly)? A standard social engineering technique used time immemorial has been to look as though you should be somewhere. Only an idiot looks suspicious, and it's not the idiots who should concern the police the most.

      In the first case, it's basic community policing 101. You don't prevent crime by looking intimidating, you prevent crime by being aware of what's happening and understanding why. The second option also works on the premise of being aware, but looks for standard social engineering practices and patterns, rather than cause-and-effect.

      In neither case is flipping out a productive or useful method. It doesn't help you recognize where or when problems are likely to occur, and only helps you catch the more dysfunctional criminals who are likely causing the least of the social headaches. However, it is by far the most common method used, because it's easy. Catching competent criminals is much harder, much more expensive, and gives a police department a worse score on offenses dealt with.

      • by Drakonik ( 1193977 ) <drakonik@gmail.com> on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:18PM (#24547499) Homepage

        A standard social engineering technique used time immemorial has been to look as though you should be somewhere.

        Quoted for truth. Several of my teachers told my class that if we wanted to, we could just wander around the school instead of going to classes, as long as we looked like we were on an errand. I'm not sure whether I should think that it's cool that I could get past authority figures by simply acting like I know that I belong, or whether I should be scared that someone who knows how to act like they belong somewhere can generally get access to that place.

        • When I was in school, and I'm hoping your talking about high school and not colledge, but we had hall passes. Restroom passes were wood things made of different shapes so if you were on the wrong floor or in a difference corridor it was easily noticed. If you were going to get something from your locker or for the teacher of whatever, you had a hand written hall pass on a off shade of yellow paper and you were asked for it if you were seen by a monitor or another teacher going somewhere between classes. It

      • by Otter ( 3800 )

        Wouldn't it be more logical to expect either the police to come over and say hi, or to take a note of the registration and car details (not necessarily visibly)?

        Indeed one might, but it would certainly result in the "overreacting idiots that don't understand technology" hysteria here that the OP suggests.

      • With the Dash cams and video recording in police cars nowadays, as well as the license plate recognition systems that locate a license plate and automatically runs it through the computer, it is possible that they had already "take a note of the registration and car details" and such.

        If nothing came back with a flag on it, then they would have had a recording of whoever was there at that time if something happened. A little detective work after that could get anyone's identity and make sure something was do

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Asking for perfection isn't a bad thing, expecting it is.

      In this case, however, I don't see how the officer did anything wrong. A bunch of kids (effectively, you know how geeks get when they're doing something marginally legal with technology) hanging out in a field with a balloon...what are you going to do? I'd say they responded properly, driving in to check it out (probably called in), realizing it wasn't anything important, and making the people aware that they were there before leaving.

    • by fm6 ( 162816 )

      You're reading too much into that bit about the patrol car. Somebody saw the balloon, freaked, hit 911, meaning the cops had to check it out. They did, and quickly decided it was no big deal. Happens a lot.

      Some artists I know in San Francisco decided to have some fun with colored chalk and a sidewalk. Nothing illegal about this, but somebody called 911 to report that terrorists were marking targets on the local gas mains. So these guys are chalking away, and a patrol car pulls up. Cop leans out of the car,

  • by Meshach ( 578918 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:44PM (#24547081)
    What else would the Police do with that situation? Is what the people were doing illegal?
    • by hoofinasia ( 1234460 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:55PM (#24547229)
      I don't care how big the parking lot, crowd, or equipment...
      Geeks with balloons are not scary.
    • by JustinOpinion ( 1246824 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:56PM (#24547233)

      Agreed. The statement in the summary "...the project managed to show how trusting the local law enforcement agencies really were..." infuriates me. Police are not supposed to be harassing people left and right, trying to uncover illegal or just unsanctioned activities. The police were friendly, waved, and didn't bother to investigate something that by all rights did not look overtly illegal. They acted appropriately.

      I would much prefer that law enforcement err on the side of trust and friendliness. This probably means that some fraction of illegal actions will go undetected and unpunished (note that only a small fraction of those illegal actions are truly dangerous and unethical)... but that is the 'price' of freedom.

      Again, I applaud the police for not flipping out when they see people engaging in activities that they don't exactly understand (but for which there is no evidence of illegal action).

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by HiggsBison ( 678319 )

        The police were friendly, waved, and didn't bother to investigate something that by all rights did not look overtly illegal.

        Anywhere else in the world it could look like a school science experiment. In Vegas, especially during Defcon, it should be assumed to be a novel approach to gaming a casino.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Angelwrath ( 125723 )

      Let's also remember to mention that:

      A. These people were not committing crimes.
      B. The cop most likely wouldn't have the foggiest idea what they were doing.
      C. Police on the street aren't the ones that track down cyber criminals, that's handled by other organizations.

  • Only 1/3? (Score:3, Informative)

    by superid ( 46543 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:46PM (#24547103) Homepage

    Last weekend I made a quick 5 mile drive and found 105 systems in my average residential neighborhood. 46 were unsecured. About 25 were running WEP.

    • Re:Only 1/3? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chunk08 ( 1229574 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:50PM (#24547153) Journal
      I live in a very small farming town. I can pick up 3 networks from my house, there are 5 in town. Mine is the only secure one (WPA2). Try to explain it to anyone else and they'll say "Why shouldn't my neighbors get on my network?"
      • by remahl ( 698283 )
        Which, incidentally, is the same that Bruce Schneier says. Go figure.
      • and they'll say "Why shouldn't my neighbors get on my network?"

        I trust my neighbors (mostly).
        I trust their kids somewhat less.
        I trust their kids' friends not at all.
      • Who cares? My wifi is unsecured, I live in a big City. Providing people don't use up too much bandwidth, I don't care and I'm happy to share my connection for free. One time somebody got abusive with the bandwidth, so I changed the network name asking them to stop. And they stopped. Neat, eh!
      • by cjb658 ( 1235986 )

        I live in a very small farming town. I can pick up 3 networks from my house, there are 5 in town. Mine is the only secure one (WPA2). Try to explain it to anyone else and they'll say "Why shouldn't my neighbors get on my network?"

        I leave mine open for that very reason. I monitor it and haven't seen anything other than casual web browsing. And in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else, it's even less likely someone will use their AP for evil.

        If I was running a bank or something that needed more security, I wouldn't leave it open, though.

    • by Zadaz ( 950521 )

      I don't even have to go outside to get a large number of samples. From where I sit (in downtown San Francisco) I get 47 wireless networks, 4 of them are unencrypted. (and of those I know two require log-ins.) Or 8.5% are open.

      All of this is anecdotal. When I visit my family in Rural Middleparts 100% of the wireless networks are open (1 of 1). Meanwhile in Tokyo something close to 5% or more of networks are open. If it's that high, it's impossible to find a place to connect there because everyone has da

    • I have to wonder how many of these "unsecured" networks are setup with MAC address filtering. My home network looks unsecured at first glance, but try getting it to hand out an IP address without being on the whitelist.
      • Re:Only 1/3? (Score:5, Informative)

        by anagama ( 611277 ) <obamaisaneocon@nothingchanged.org> on Sunday August 10, 2008 @03:36PM (#24548207) Homepage

        I'm not sure if you are making a joke, so just in case you aren't, I'll point out that MAC address filtering is no security at all. Your laptop is transmitting it's MAC as part of the regular wifi transmissions so sniffing it out of the air is trivial with Kismet or Kismac. Spoofing a MAC address is trivial on Linux and Windows machines, a bit more involved to make your OS X Leaopard system able to spoof but not rocket science, and apparently trivial with "spoofmac" on Tiger.

        Here's an overview:

        http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/changemac [irongeek.com]

        For Linux, if you just want a random MAC to make yourself even more anonymous:
        http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger [alobbs.com]

        Similar software exists for windows (google "windows macchanger")

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by zn0k ( 1082797 )

          Spoofing a MAC address is trivial on Linux and Windows machines, a bit more involved to make your OS X Leaopard system able to spoof but not rocket science, and apparently trivial with "spoofmac" on Tiger.


          bash-3.2$ uname -a
          Darwin Laptop.local 9.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.4.0: Mon Jun 9 19:36:17 PDT 2008; root:xnu-1228.5.20~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh
          bash-3.2$ ifconfig en0|grep ether
          ether 00:11:24:d5:57:9e
          bash-3.2$ sudo ifconfig en0 ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
          Password:
          bash-3.2$ ifconfig en0|grep ether
          ether aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

          It's trivial on OS X (Leopard and Tiger), too.

          • by anagama ( 611277 )
            You're right -- I have the 9.3.0 PPC kernel and it worked fine on wired and wireless. I was under the mistaken impression you had to patch the kernel to get it to work. Maybe that was old info.
        • I wasn't entirely serious. Encryption is obviously needed to prevent any sniffers from grabbing and spoofing a MAC, but I would honestly like for somebody to spoof a MAC and get onto my network. That would mean there's at least one other person in my apartment complex that knows what they're doing, and possibly a new friend. And as long as they're not from the **AA, I've got nothing to hide, and pleanty to share.
    • I was at Harriet Island in St. Paul, MN for the Irish fair. Whipped out the laptop, and couldn't find any unsecured AP that had more than 1% strength. ALL the other APs, all with strong signals are secured. Kinda pissed me off as I wanted to check my email.

  • Hill suspects that local authorities might have been spooked by the fact that he called his device a warballoon.

    A slight name change sounds necessary then.. How does waterballoon sound?

  • Open by choice? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ishmalius ( 153450 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:54PM (#24547221)
    Don't assume people's motives for having an open AP. Rather than security ignorance, altruism is a perfectly good reason to turn off WEP and WPA.
    • Especially given that there was a hacking convention going on in town (who might be more inclined to believe in free wireless for all?)
    • Re:Open by choice? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dwater ( 72834 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:19PM (#24547515)

      I do.

      There's even an organisation around where I live/work that promotes it. It's called wippies :

      http://www.wippies.com/www.phtml [wippies.com]

      For a free year long commitment, they will send you a free wifi router that will run a second wifi network 'on the side' for other subscribers to use when they're away from home. There's a google map of coverage somewhere on their site, but I can't find it right away...

      • I'm also a member of Wippies, but there's nothing altruistic about this subscribers-only network. Then again, I'm wary of keeping a truly open AP, because of the illegal uses that might be traced back to me.
        • by dwater ( 72834 )

          > but there's nothing altruistic about this subscribers-only network

          Really?

          It's free to join...you just have to share yours too.

          Clearly it's not the same as an open network, but it's still quite altruistic, IMO.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dugenou ( 850340 )
        How similar is this to FON [fon.com] ?
        • by dwater ( 72834 )

          Dunno...it seems to be flash which wants to open another window, which I don't want it to; and can't be bothered to find another link.

          However, their top level flash image seems to suggest the router costs money. Wippies doesn't cost anything, IINM.

  • by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @01:56PM (#24547237)

    In addition to that, the project managed to show how trusting the local law enforcement agencies really were: 'Near the end of the operation, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police cruiser drove by the parking lot to see what was going on. Hill and his team waved. The police officers waved back and drove off.'"

    Oh now they're too trusting?!

    What do you want?!

    Should they have played hardball and interrogated them, maybe arrested them and confiscated their equipment until they could ascertain they were safe so you could have a post about "out of control" law enforcement again?

    Perhaps they should've called out the bomb squads ala the Mooninites bomb scare? [wikipedia.org]

    I, for one, vastly prefer this response.

  • 'Near the end of the operation, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police cruiser drove by the parking lot to see what was going on. Hill and his team waved. The police officers waved back and drove off

    If they hadn't, then there would have been a story about how intrusive and incompetent the police was.

    The police did the right thing: they judged correctly that there was no imminent danger and drove on. It isn't their job to try to find economic or computer hacking crimes-in-progress, and they have neither the equipm

    • Or they could have questioned the people in the parking lot - something simple that at least shows them making an effort (and making it harder for the blackhats to boot).
  • Sounds good (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Irongeek_ADC ( 903018 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:06PM (#24547357) Homepage
    Actually, only 1/3 insecure sounds like a great improvement over just a few years ago.
  • by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) * on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:08PM (#24547367) Homepage Journal

    802.11 APs that people refer to as being 'unsecured' are in fact broadcasting a beacon declaring them to be 'Open System'. It is right there in the spec, section 8.2.2.2 .

    'Open System' means exactly that. Come on it. We're open.

    This is a good thing. I don't secure my wireless LAN. I secure my computers. If people want to borrow a bit of my bandwidth, go right ahead. My neighbor does it all the time when he can't get his crappy cable internet to work.

    This should be encouraged. Call them 'Open' and call it a good thing.

  • by speedtux ( 1307149 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:10PM (#24547401)

    Are there really people stupid enough to think that awareness of security holes is something new? Every major piece of infrastructure over the last century has had major security holes. But rather than gleefully exploiting and exposing them for personal fame and fortune, the people who figured it out just shut up about them. Why? Because they understood that fixing those holes would be costly and intrusive, and it would ultimately still not make the system really safe.

    So, if you enjoy body cavity searches, universal surveillance cameras, automated defense systems, and dealing with proprietary and intrusive access controls everywhere you go electronically or physically, then go ahead and keep wardriving and warballooning and defconnning.

    Just be aware that it is your actions that are bringing us the police state, because once a bunch of geeks stands up and says "hey, your infrastructure isn't secure and we are at risk", then politicians and lawmakers have to act.

  • by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @02:38PM (#24547671)
    In addition to that, the project managed to show how trusting the local law enforcement agencies really were.

    Why shouldn't they be? Why should people out in the open with laptops automatically be assumed to be criminals? No matter what they were doing, odds are the cops wouldn't have to technical knowledge to make a proper judgment anyway. Suppose these guys really were up to no good, and the cops questioned them about it. "We're just playing some network video games officer."

    Or is the use of a portable computer in public now considered criminal behavior?
  • Log into their routers and turn the security on for them.

    You know 98% of those unsecured APs also had the default password, right?

    But seriously, is it now illegal to scan for networks to see how many are unencrypted???

    I would say the only hint of anything illegal would be if they logged on to the networks. But even that shouldn't get the police to come and beat you.

    Transporter_ii

  • by mschuyler ( 197441 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @03:13PM (#24547989) Homepage Journal

    You say that like it's a bad thing. Most WiFi networks are of such low power to render them effectively useless beyond a few feet of the origin of the signal. In my neighborhood with houses on half-acre to acre lots I can detect half a dozen networks. A couple are 'insecure,' but the signal is one bar in strength. Besides, I'm detecting them with my own network, so why do I want to 'steal' their bandwidth? Mine is faster. There aren't many people who want to cruise the neighborhood looking for unsecured signals so they can use their laptop in the privacy of their own automobile to surf the net. How uncomfortable is that? I surf with my feet propped up, a beer on the table, and the dog curled up at my feet.

    Then there are those networks that are intentionally unsecured. The local library has a router intentionally pointed at the parking lot (Gasp!) In the downtown area every hotel is within range of an unsecured network. They even have a placard that tells you how to connect--free!

    Sure, there are probably guys into taking advantage of you if your network is unsecured. Perhaps the issue is more prevalent in an apartment house or a dorm than single family residences, but I think this is more of a theoretical issue than a practical one. You can hypothesize your way to wild conclusions, but in the end, is this REALLY a serious problem?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xrayspx ( 13127 )
      If you aimed a better antenna at your neighbors house, it would be easy to sniff all their traffic. Now let's say that you're not the well meaning, keep to yourself kind of guy that I'm sure you are, but that you're intent on identity theft or stealing personal or business data. The fact that you can see 1/2 dozen unsecured networks from your house means you live in a pretty target-rich environment. How many of your neighbors might use the same password for AIM or Myspace that they use for Bank of Americ
    • I surf with my feet propped up, a beer on the table, and the dog curled up at my feet.

      You let your dog sit on your table? So you're insecure AND a hick.

  • by ladybugfi ( 110420 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @03:22PM (#24548069)
    ...was Cory Doctorow in the balloon blogging? http://xkcd.com/239/ [xkcd.com]
  • by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @04:43PM (#24548751) Journal

    They were cool and casual, and did not run from the cops. If they had stared at the cruiser with that "OMG, we're busted" look, or even worse, run away; there might have been trouble. You hear stories like this all the time--the guy who gets pulled over for a warning about going 10 miles over the limit, and he's cool and the cop never finds out he's got joints in the glovebox. Then, on the other side there's the guy who's initially done nothing wrong and ends up getting his whole car searched by dogs, and getting detained for an hour just because he acted suspiciously.

  • Well, since what they were doing is totally legal, why shouldn't the local cops wave and drive off?

  • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Sunday August 10, 2008 @06:57PM (#24549837)
    "Near the end of the operation, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police cruiser drove by the parking lot to see what was going on. Hill and his team waved. The police officers waved back and drove off.'"
    .

    and the next time the geek pulls some damn full stunt in Vegas will the cops be so warm and fuzzy?

  • by nmg196 ( 184961 ) * on Monday August 11, 2008 @05:13AM (#24553187)

    Stories keep getting posted about the number of networks which are unsecured like it's some kind of problem. The vast majority of those networks are SUPPOSED to be unsecured. They're probably open networks designed for free public use - like the ones you get around New York parks which have been installed by Google or the hotpots in coffee shops such as Starbucks.

    In the UK, all BT Openworld public access hotspots are unsecured as well. You can't actually use them though, unless you log in as they have an HTTP intercept until you log in.

    Unless they can differentiate between intentionally open public hotspots in Starbucks (etc) and unsecured home access points in naive people's houses, then any figures are totally meaningless.

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