Wardriving a crime? Or an intro to DNR

Post by **DNR** » 02 Mar 2006, 10:53

Is wardriving a crime where you live?

<< For those with short attention span or difficulty in translating my language, I am sorry. I tend to get spastic fingers after a triple expresso, and a burning bud>>

By no means am I 13370 on wardriving or wifi. I do have a background in cabled networks and puters, and peripheral devices. A little bit of coding, and lots of personal study. I started coding on a Commodore 64, with a cassette tape drive and a whopping 75kb of RAM.I went to college for almost four years with a 3.7 gpa. I am Novell Network certified, and have a year of college MS 2K Advanced Server. I had plans to be a sysadmin, but the way things are now, I hack for personal reasons. Call me white hat or Grey hat, but I ain't black hat.

I started wardriving recently because I wanted to get back on the internet but I have no money to pay for cabled access. I used to play on 'free cabled networks' like at public libraries, college classrooms or their library. But they have started to tie in names with logins, so anonymity was gone. Wardriving in the USA is almost considered a computer crime. Being on another person's network without permission is considered 'unauthorized access to a computer or network', a five year federal jail penalty. Several have been through a legal hell, lucky enough to walk away without their laptop.

When I wardrive I have to use discretion and hide what I am doing. Parking in front of a home is not considered discreet. I have been discovered and locked out of business networks just by sitting in their parking lot, for several hours at a time, almost everyday, MB of downloading/uploading. People don’t like me loitering in their parking lot, so I try to blend in, hide in the shadows or use nearby parking, or they don’t like me on their network for free all the time. Businesses want to make money off you and they are going to figure a way to charge you for the internet. Some free wifi, like the hotels, of course the internet access was meant for their paying customer, not me- sitting out in their parking lot..
I don’t use any fancy antenna for my Compaq AMD laptop, it works quite well from my vehicle. I suppose later I will try a USB wifi antenna plug-in with a three foot cable extension. IT all depends on Win XP OS. I have sat on benches or the ground next to businesses offering ‘free’ wifi in order to get the signal strength to connect. Now it is 20 degrees F with wind chill outside, so I got to sit in a heated car. The car is comfortable, blasting stereo, isolation from others. Power seats. Add Oakley Sunglasses.

I like searching for new networks. It fits my lifestyle of hacking. graduating from cabled networks to wifi.
I use NetStumbler (or net stumble bum) to try and map out wifi sites. Where I live, there are many businesses of all kinds- restaurants, food take-outs, hotels, commercial and industrial shit, there are upper-middle class home network wifis. I can pick up wifi'ed cash registers, I can pick up a home wifi that is not encrypted, or 'did they think the network SSID was private? Network SSID=Network Key is usually a good try for cracking a home wifi key. I can drive a two mile section and NetStumbler will have picked up at least 20 wifi networks, 25% will not be WEP’ed. It is my ethics and opinion that what ever is in the air is free and I believe in the old Hacker Manifest. Do No Harm.Thats why I am White Hat, but since I have no playground to learn hacking, I am Grey Hat - I like to sniff and peek at networks. I surf the net for email. AIM, downloadz, and daily news. I must read The Register.co.uk , AstaLaVista, Times UK, South China News, ZDNet.com.AU, Independent UK, Newsfactor, and any Hacker E-zine, or discussion groups, like suck-o.com. I got to have my NFO feed. Besides wanting to surf the internet for free, I want to enlighten myself in the interworkings of wifi networking. I am open to trying to WEP crack a access point, spoof a logged in user by changing MAC addy, or sniff traffic around me, to and from computers and the access point. You can't make a better security system or understand how to protect yourself, without trying to dismantle a lock. Besides, Education is a Drug, Feed Your Brain.

So far my favorite ‘free wifi’ sites are related to certain hotel chains. One hotel wifi location I can access by parking on a freeway ramp. Another I can sit in the parking lot. Restaurant wifi’s are ok, but many do not have the range to allow surfing by sitting in your car in the parking lot. Some businesses offer free wifi access to attract customers. Hotels or businesses expect that you will be sitting inside. Some issue you a network key after you make a purchase. Its funny that many WEP'ed 'free wifi' networks use the business phone or fax number as a network key, and never change it.. Now they issue time-expiration login keys/pwds via website login/third-party software. I suppose my option is to pay for it, crack the third party login keys, or pay $3.95 for a two hour block.

>>> Maybe this will get a thread going, please share your experience or wardriving tactics<<<

DNR

Post by **maboroshi** » 02 Mar 2006, 11:43

Well this experience with wardriving is trivial
But I was playing around with tools and discovered an open network close to my house it was my landlords being the nice guy that I am I let them know there internet connection was wide open

I haven't played to much with that but I am really fascinated by bluetooth and one of the reaons I installed FreeBSD is so I can get a Module for bluetooth for my favourite programming/scripting Language Python

Another reason I haven't played with wardriving is I don't have a car and Im to lazy to walk lol

Anyway interesting Post DNR

Post by **DNR** » 02 Mar 2006, 14:18

maboroshi,
well wardriving for wifi includes any radio frequency. Bluetooth is not exactly popular yet here. I am sure lugging around a laptop on foot sucks - cuz I have done it.

I wonder if anyone else has sniffed frequencies like for police/rescue radios, remote controls for vehicles, garage doors, etc.

DNR

Post by **DNR** » 12 Mar 2006, 15:58

Boy that wardriving shit sure got quiet!

Post by **maboroshi** » 14 Mar 2006, 16:47

Well another thing I tried to do was setup the infamous bluetooth sniper rifle
its still a work in progress

But I don't want to use a rifle Im gonna use a grenade shell I have the gumstix computer for it Im just hoping to learn enough before hand so I can develop some custom scripts

my plan is Drop the grenade in the city filled with cellphones and just browse and see how many are open

I would like to try and link my laptop through bluetooth to gather the data on screen so I don't have to have it plugged into the gumstix

If all goes well I should be able to listen in on Cellphone convos if I wanted to I would like to show it to my friends who don't know to much about this stuff to really fuck with there heads

But its a work in progress and I got to iron out all the details

Cheers

Maboroshi

Post by **bad_brain** » 15 Mar 2006, 07:39

well, I have done wardriving for some months, but not any more...because I´ll have a fast connection in my new house and so I can dl huge files through my own connection, and because wardriving gets boring after a while...when I drove around on saturday or sunday afternoon I had about 20 unencrypted networks on netstumbler after a few minutes, it´s ridiculous that many people aren´t really aware of their network security.
but well, I still have one target in my mind, we have a brandnew HUGE police building here, and as I drove by I found 3 open networks. the problem is that there is no possibility to park the car in a safe distance, I would have to park right in front of the building...

so I´ll either buy a cantenna or build one by my own...but the next problem is that I can´t connect an external antenna to my lappy wifi card. I surely could build a connection from my home computer to the target too because it´s just about 150 meters away, but my home wifi card isn´t recognized by netstumbler or any other app, so maybe one of you guys have a card which works and let me know what model it is...

wardriving is a "crime" here, but well, there is plenty of stuff which is not allowed but people are doing it, so imo wardriving is just a small one if you don´t do damage to the target system.
also I am thinking about buying a scanner, the fun part is: you can buy them here, but you´re not allowed to listen to police radios...it´s like selling guns and expect people not to use them....

bluetooth is not very popular here, but many people use cellphones with bluetooth enabled by default and don´t even know it...so I think we can expect a rising rate of malicious bluetooth activities soon.

Post by **CommonStray** » 15 Mar 2006, 19:40

hmm well ive never done any wardriving....yet

i used to war-dial every so often....ive even went as far as scanning an entire exchange for carriers manually, i somewhat know how you feel DNR tho, sitting next to a building trying to connect though....i built a linemans handset out of a cordless phone a few years back and id sit in my car about 1 or 2 houses down from where i was phreaking....people dont like picking up their fone hearing a screeching carrier or ppl talking....hehe, they tend to get a little ticked

Post by **DNR** » 23 Mar 2006, 10:53

Thanks for responding, I get to learn about the people in this board. Glad to be here.

Scanning for radio freqs is probably akin to wardialing. I know I can search for lists of radio freqs in my area to listen to. I haven't found software to make my wifi card sniff any/all radio frequencies like a handheld scanner. I have a buddy that is sheriff deputy and he says the local police frequencies are published and known to the public. You can listen to them at home, but to get caught driving around with a scanner on police freq is defacto illegal.

I guess a part of the fun of phreaking, wardriving/wardialing, and hacking is the 'snoop and poop sneakyness' that goes along with it.

The last time I had some real fun was at a hacking-con.
http://c0vertl.tripod.com/rbcn4.htm

DNR

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 29 Jan 2009, 13:27

If you dont want to look like an obvious war driver wardrive in something like this

then they will just suspect you are selling drugs instead

I cant wait to get my laptop in the mail within the next 3 days, then i can finally go war driving again.

is this a donked out fantom or what?..

Or... you can get one of these t-shirts that have a wifi signal detector on the front (it really works and shows the signal strength)
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-appare ... tive/991e/

Post by **bad_brain** » 29 Jan 2009, 14:23

lol...the shirt is really cool, but the car looks simply ridiculous...

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 29 Jan 2009, 15:06

bad_brain wrote:lol...the shirt is really cool, but the car looks simply ridiculous...

haha yeah i guess it is suppose to look ridiculous on purpose, its called a "Donk" pretty much a southern florida thing i think. Alot of old cop cars are the same kind so it is easy to find cheap parts since it is an older car (old caprices and such). I dont know if im for that big of rims but the suicide/lamborghini doors and hydrolics looks cool imo. Candy paint is nice. If you thought that was interesting heres a pretty cool video to watch from my area

Code: Select all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubGkCgXr-BY&NR=1

My friend was a car mechanic genius.. and somehow hooked his pickup trucks 16 switch hydrolic system up to a xbox 360 controller.. oh the fun of useing a xbox 360 controller to use the hydrolic switches makeing the car bounce around.

this is my trunk curently i will transfer the audio system to my new car or maybe sell it, its a 1000watt audiocrunch amp with 2 12" audiobaugns in a plexy glass box, you can hear me comeing from 1/2 mile a way if i really turn the music up

jaggy1 · Post by **jaggy1** » 20 Apr 2009, 11:01

DNR wrote: . I must read The Register.co.uk , AstaLaVista, Times UK, South China News, ZDNet.com.AU, Independent UK,
DNR

Now I have a pic in my head of you on a bench with a lake effect snow burying you as you read the gossip papers in the UK!!

Post by **DNR** » 20 Apr 2009, 23:00

hey jaggy welcome to the forum

In the winter time I am stuck using a V3 motorola cellphone as a modem - dial-up!

DNR

gritzngravy · Post by **gritzngravy** » 25 Oct 2009, 03:24

I have no idea whose wifi it was, but I used to be able to get onto someone's wifi network on my ipod from my room as i didnt have a laptop at the time

i used to just surf the web at night when i didnt have access to pc, one day i decided to download a few torrents on my ipod (using dTunes for those of you familiar with the ipod touch jailbroken apps.)

i downloaded saw movies 1-5 formatted for an ipod. it was like a 4 gb file and took quite a while to download at speeds of like 10 kb/sec

the next day, their network was wep password protected so im pretty much guessing they knew something was eating up all their bandwidth

leetnigga · Post by **leetnigga** » 25 Oct 2009, 03:35

gritzngravy wrote:the next day, their network was wep password protected so im pretty much guessing they knew something was eating up all their bandwidth

You could have gotten back on the same day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_Equi ... vacy#Flaws

suck-o.com

Wardriving a crime? Or an intro to DNR

Wardriving a crime? Or an intro to DNR

WiFi

Wardriving, snatching Frequencies..

wardriving? Huh?

Bluetooth sniper rifle

phreaking radio freqs

Re: Wardriving a crime? Or an intro to DNR