Down another rabbit hole.

[kidphc]

The image that started it all. Posted on Reddit. Now reading about wardriving. Such a hobby amateur radio is, although wardriving isn't specific to amatuer radio.

The reddit post.... linked to the owners response.

[MichaelLAX]

Nice catch!

I didn't read the full Sub-Reddit thread, so I do not know what time frame and context they are using the term war-driving.

I tend to use it on this Forum when I go out finding GMRS and Ham Repeaters and reverse-engineering their tones to gain access to them.

My original knowledge of the term comes from just after the 90's after Apple released their first Airport WiFi device (looked like a flying saucer, and then others followed quickly behind them) to go out driving to find both WiFi signals that were not protected (no password) or even to unscramble the poor quality of WEP passwords used in that era.

It was called "war-driving" in reference to Mathew Broderick's character in the motion picture, War Games, and his use of his POTS-modem to war-dialing: find and break into different online boards etc. And the term was modified to the pursuit of WiFi discoveries by driving around.

What is the context of war-driving to Amateur Radio that you are reading?

[WROZ250]

How to say "hey, there is a lot of expensive stuff in this vehicle".

FWIW, 'War Driving', at least where WiFi is concerned, is a crime ('unauthorized access of a computer network' and, 'theft of services') in most states, after it was brought to light by the arrest (felony charges) of some guy in Florida back in 2005. 

I should add, that after seeing the owners response on Reddit, what he is actually doing is NOT illegal nor is it technically 'War Driving'.  He appears to just be collecting location data for WiFi systems.

Bottom line, secure your WiFi.
 

[WROZ250]

39 minutes ago, WROZ250 said:

How to say "hey, there is a lot of expensive stuff in this vehicle".

FWIW, 'War Driving', at least where WiFi is concerned, is a crime ('unauthorized access of a computer network' and, 'theft of services') in most states, after it was brought to light by the arrest (felony charges) of some guy in Florida back in 2005. 

I should add, that after seeing the owners response on Reddit, what he is actually doing is NOT illegal nor is it technically 'War Driving'.  He appears to just be collecting location data for WiFi systems.

Bottom line, secure your WiFi.
 

I stand corrected, the new term for illegal access is now Piggybacking, whereas War Driving is in fact what the guy in the Reddit article was doing, which is legal.

Not, I suppose, that anybody really cares! LOL!

[MichaelLAX]

8 minutes ago, WROZ250 said:

Not, I suppose, that anybody really cares! LOL!

You obviously never saw the movie: War Games!

[Lscott]

30 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

You obviously never saw the movie: War Games!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNLQ-O-Qx3Y

 

[axorlov]

Did it myself (the war driving) between 2000 and 2005 with Toshiba Libretto 100CT, and later with HP Jornada 720, both running linux with kismet. This reddit post is a blast from the past. Libretto is now in big trash can of history, but I still keep that Jornada, for I don't know what. Maybe because I contributed to jlime and openpsion projects.

[WROZ250]

4 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

You obviously never saw the movie: War Games!

I've seen it many times.  That was War-Dialing and we all did it back then. 

The movie touched on a lot of the nerd stuff from the day.  I seem to recall the kid had an Altair kit computer on his desk.  Love, and sadly remember, the old audio coupled phone modem!  The scene where he made phone calls from the ground start payphone. They didn't have him using the coveted 'Blue Box' for making long distance phone calls.

A lot of the rest was total BS, but it was a movie after all.  Still, it captured the spirit of the computer hobbyists of the day.

How times and technology have changed.

[WROZ250]

38 minutes ago, WROZ250 said:

I've seen it many times.  That was War-Dialing and we all did it back then. 

The movie touched on a lot of the nerd stuff from the day.  I seem to recall the kid had an Altair kit computer on his desk.  Love, and sadly remember, the old audio coupled phone modem!  The scene where he made phone calls from the ground start payphone. They didn't have him using the coveted 'Blue Box' for making long distance phone calls.

A lot of the rest was total BS, but it was a movie after all.  Still, it captured the spirit of the computer hobbyists of the day.

How times and technology have changed.

Actually the computer the kid was using in the movie was the IMSAI 8080, another kit similar to the Altair, based on the 8080 chip.  The monitor was what was throwing me off on the Altair idea.  The latter (Altair) did not support a monitor by default.

[kidphc]

I just can't condone it nor would I do it. Sure its just collecting data for open WIFI systems. Not like Apple and Google don't do it as "location services' Just the thought the data is used for potential (more then potential should say likely) pedophile and dark web use. 

I just found it an interesting aspect of the radio hobby. Not like you need to be licensed to collect these data points.

[WRQI583]

Wow, I was going to say, in my area, those antennas are Waaaaay too small to be ham radio antennas, but I forgot we have privileges in the higher bands ha ha ha. 

Nice setup on the back of that car. Looks like what my vehicle would look like if there was more activity. Back where I grew up, there was and one of my vehicles had 7 or 8 antennas on it. Good times back then.

[DONE]

One of the issues here is that open WiFi isn't necessarily OPEN.

Just because it doesn't require a password to access the network for that SSID, it can still be firewalled for some level of OTHER authentication. um

Typically that would be a provided password, room number or other information.  Back in the day of Libretto laptops, you had three options for access control.

First was open to the world (what you would look for wardriving)

Second was WEP as there wan't any other option, but that was more secure than nothing.

Lastly was the hidden SSID that wasn't broadcast.  Of course this wasn't real secure either.

You could of course do a MAC address database to allow or deny access but that wasn't really effective either. 

 

[MichaelLAX]

2 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

Second was WEP as there wan't any other option, but that was more secure than nothing.

I seem to recall that there was a Linux laptop setup in those days that would break WEP "protection."

[DONE]

4 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

I seem to recall that there was a Linux laptop setup in those days that would break WEP "protection."

Yep, that is true.  Parts of the password were transmitted in the clear.  A bit of time and the whole 'password' could be found.

Of course that is the reason that WEP is no longer used.