FBI Warns Companies About Wireless Warchalking

nobilid writes: "Well-meaning wireless activists have caught the attention of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. One of its agents has issued a warning about the popular practice of using chalk marks to show the location of wireless networks."

Kinda Misleading

[mo]

Wow, reading the header I though that the FBI is going after people who create the warchalk marks. But, if you RTA it's a lot less interesting. Basically, the FBI is saying that companies should be clued in if they get a warchalk marking an open WLAN next to their office. Duh. Dunno why I need the FBI to tell me that.

Warchalk sightings

[raju1kabir]

Has anyone actually come across any examples of warchalking in real life? (it doesn't count if you did it yourself, or if you found out about it from a news article and went to go see it).

I walk and bike around DC more or less constantly and I've never seen one despite keeping my eyes peeled. And I know there's no shortage of WLAN networks here (netstumbled the 20-minute walk home from work and got about 40).

well meaning??

[blaine]

OK, these "wireless activists" go around searching for insecure wireless networks, and when they find them, instead of telling the owners of said networks about the problem, they covertly mark the information down so that others can use that network illegally.

How the hell is this in any way "well meaning"?!

I swear, only on slashdot ...

Re:It's not easy to report holes

[mgkimsal2]

I don't subscribe to the idea that these people are doing something 'covertly'. If it was 'covert' they wouldn't put it out in public, for starters. It'd be on a password-protected website or something else harders to get to.

Also, as many others have pointed out, some people chalk themselves to let people know that they can use the wireless access.

Your point was that people should tell the network point owner about the 'openness'. I say no - let people find out for themselves. Unless a company has some sort of 'contact us' form for technical people to submit real technical issues (website problems, security issues, etc) that will in fact be addressed by technical people who won't respond with lawsuits, I'm not bothering to do their work for them for free.

try to publicize the problem somewhere
Putting chalk marks outside a building seems pretty public to me. I guess they could make the chalk marks larger, but then you'd be in trouble for graffitti (IBM/Linux chalkings). Warchalking IS a public approach, but it's not necessarily signifying a 'problem' - it's just pointing out a circumstance. The label of 'problem' is for the network owner to decide.

Just Curious....

[cyberon22]

Realistically, why bother?

If the FBI is concerned with the unauthorized use of wireless networks, they'd be better off cracking down on Starbucks, airport coffee bars, or even Bryant Park, NY. [nycwireless.net]

Frankly, I'm surprised people still bother to hack from home. If I was looking to break into a guarded system, the FIRST thing I'd do would be to on a casual jaunt for a warhacking hotspot. The explosion of public 802.11 spaces opens up completely unprecedented possibilities for physical and network anonymity. The REAL question becomes what happens when someone actually uses this type of vulnerability to cause real and substantive damage to someone. Is Starbucks criminally negligant when one of their network users DOSes the DOD?

If the FBI wants to get companies to lock-down 802.11 services, all they need to do is remind firms of their legal liability for "unauthorized" uses of unguarded 802.11 networks.

FBI Honeypots

[octalgirl]

The FBI is taking a serious notice on Wardriving. Here's a SecurityFocus article on how they are setting up Honeypots [securityfocus.com], FBI stings to catch warchalkers, although it claims they are just trying to get a feel for whats really out there.