How does war driving work?

**Arathranar** · 01-26-2005, 02:27 AM

I've been experimenting with my laptop and whilst I see a load of 'unsecure' networks whilst driving around I never get an IP assigned to my laptop. I was kind of hoping I'd be able to sync across a bit of email whilst driving but no joy. What's the trick?

**big_cali_dave** · 01-26-2005, 03:29 AM

You'll go in and out of range in a network faster than you can think dhcp. You're gonna have to stop the car to get an email download for now. Get a big wifi amp and a nice omni antenna. That'll give you a better chance of picking one up at a stop sign.

**wizardPC** · 01-26-2005, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by Arathranar

...What's the trick?

The trick is that you can go to jail for stealing wifi.

**mpattonm** · 01-26-2005, 09:49 AM

hehehehe. you are not that serious are you?

**grepzen** · 01-26-2005, 10:10 AM

he might not be, but someone is:

It is official, the first Wardriving conviction is going to fall on the shoulders of 23 year old Paul Timmins. Paul and his then roomate found an open Wi-Fi connection at a Lowes in Southfield, Mi. His Friend then came back with a young hacker and proceeded to route through Lowes corporate. Installing a mod on some software so they could collect credit card information. Those two got the worst of the sentences. The Roomate got 41 to 51 Months in jail and can't touch a computer for 10-15 years. The Hacker got a rather harsh sentence of 12 to 15 years in jail. Timmins will only be in jail for about 12 months. So the question remains, how many of you will continue to wardrive knowing that you could spend some time behind bars?

**mpattonm** · 01-26-2005, 10:23 AM

Well its different to use corporate WiFi network to dowload your favorite web pages, update weather reports and hack their communication to steal credit cards numbers in intention to steal money.

**got2liv4him** · 01-26-2005, 10:23 AM

looks like that was wardriving with malice... would it be the same if you were just doing it for fun?

**Bugbyte** · 01-26-2005, 11:28 AM

It's illegal to use someone's wireless network just because they are too stupid to protect it. Same as it's illegal to use their car just because they left the keys in it.

Granted, the punishment differs but it's sort of like tapping into their phone line and using it only for local calls and only when they aren't using it. Still against the law.

**wizardPC** · 01-27-2005, 10:42 AM

The legal term for it is "theft of services"

**cet99** · 01-27-2005, 12:32 PM

well I done it alot around my parents neighborhood, I could pretty much walk the whole block and pick up 4 or more open wifi connections, aside from my cisco teacher, who lives in the same block, the remaining networks are open and with the default ssid, linksys, netgear and so on. I think he's mentioned that to them and most havent done anything about it yet, so who is really to blame if something were to happen?
Now if you were to "gain" access a secured network with no ssid and 128 bit wep encryption just for "fun" that would be a whole different story.